During, the latter part of 1999, however, these banks faced liquidity pressures, which led to many of these medium to small banks exiting from the banking system. This downward trend reached its lowest point with the placement of Saambou Bank into curatorship in February 2002 and the subsequent integration of BOE Bank into Nedbank.
Moreover, in periods of stress a large gap may open between what the risk-based metric requires, and what the market expects through simpler metrics. I hasten to add that simple metrics alone can and will be gamed, as the recent experience under Basel I has shown, particularly related to the growth of exposures to off-balance sheet vehicles.