12 September 2012 6:59am

There is one curious detail in the "response to submissions" published by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand yesterday on its consultation over its approach to rolling out Basel III in the local economy.

"A small number [of banks] questioned whether the new [capital] ratios were necessary, given for instance the lack of bank failures in New Zealand," the RBNZ wrote.

The last bank failure in New Zealand was in 1990, when the government was obliged to spend NZ$680 million on the rescue of Bank of New...