The long road to Basel III Many observers of the Basel negotiations – journalists, politicians, industry representatives and fellow colleagues from the central banking and supervisory community – have repeatedly asked me the same question: Why did it take so long to finalise Basel III?
After all, significant parts of the reform had already been agreed upon in 2010, yet it took us about seven more years to finalise the reform. As I can understand this question very well, let me try to answer it. I see two main reasons why it took so long. First, our task was extremely complex on a technical level.