The leverage ratio requires banks to hold top quality tier one capital equal to 3% per cent of their total assets, including off-balance sheet assets such as trade finance commitments. In addition, because trade finance involves the importer’s bank and the exporter’s bank through a letter of credit, the changing risk weight on loans between financial firms is likely to adversely affect trade finance.
4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  According to the report and a survey of country practices, of the 45 countries surveyed, New Zealand and Japan were the only countries that made no explicit estimates of unobserved activities in the estimation of GDP5. The importance of the unobserved economy is of course quite different across countries, so under reporting will vary for this reason.