The New Basel Capital Accord, Basel II, promotes standards for measurement of financial and
operational risk in the banking industry. Its approach to such risk measurement has been
severely criticized in the literature, inevitably raising doubts concerning the effectiveness of
Basel II. Using data from 25 semi-structured interviews with banking staff in four Swedish
banks, the study suggests that Basel II is well established in practice, but there are significant
concerns that such measurement of risk may adversely affect banks’ activities. Whilst Basel
II is generally supported by banking staff who work directly with risk measurement, its
usefulness is questioned by banking staff in operations. This difference between these two
groups may be explained in relation to variations in their respective frames of reference.
Both groups are inclined to take account of information that me shes well with their existing
frames of reference and are thus more inclined to value changes that accord with their own
viewpoints. One suggestion for addressing this schism within banks is to encourage a wider
debate about the various approaches to implementing Basel II.