Basel II and III for Banks
The purpose of Basel II, which was initially published in June 2004, is to create an international standard that banking regulators can use when creating regulations about how much capital banks need to put aside to guard against the types of financial and operational risks banks face. In December of 2010 BASEL III was issued, effectively demanding stricter controls and specifically: "tighter definitions of common equity, the introduction of a leverage ratio, a framework for counter-cyclical capital buffers, measures to limit counterparty credit risk, and short and medium-term quantitative liquidity ratios.