The authorities in the United States proposed the bifurcated application of Basel II (with one group under Basel II and most banks remaining under the current capital requirements) and rejected the trifurcated approach (with banks choosing for themselves among the three Basel II variants for credit risk, as well as three variants for operational risk), which looks to be preferred in other countries, for three basic reasons.
Reserves and the international monetary system  Over the past decade international reserve holdings have become increasingly concentrated in the hands of emerging market countries, and have grown well above traditional “precautionary” norms (e.g., in terms of months of imports or as a ratio to short-term external debt).