How much enthusiasm local financial regulators have for the reforms emanating from the Bank for International Settlements and related forums is doubtful, with central banks either side of the Tasman raising doubts about the tenor, and timing, of present proposals.The BIS on Friday published one version of one of those proposals, relating to "countercyclical capital buffers".That proposal calls for bank regulators to ramp up core capital ratios when credit growth is judged to be "excess" and "judged to be associated with a build-up of system-wide risk".The proposal would, in the view of proponents, complement plans for a "capital conservation buffer" that the BIS have publicised previously.A countercyclical capital buffers would operate infrequently, according to the BIS discussion paper, and perhaps once every 10 to 20 years.A capital conservation buffer would in practice apply at all times, and dictate limits on the payment of dividends.There's also support (though this may be fading) for simple leverage ratios to replace the more complicated methods of working out bank capital ratios that are the hallmark of the Basel I and Basel II accords.In Australia and New Zealand regulatory interest may be lukewarm.In a speech yesterday Glenn Stevens, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, said: "I am not sure who first began to talk of this as 'Basel III' but the label seems to be starting to stick. Basel II came in only about two years ago for many countries, 20 years after Basel I. The gap between Basel II and Basel III looks like being a lot shorter... That pace of acceleration in devising new standards is unsustainable!"The essence of the many regulatory reform proposals, Stevens reminded his audience, is that "regulators are pushing toward a global banking system characterised by more capital and lower leverage, bigger holdings of liquid assets and undertaking less maturity transformation. It is hoped that this system will display greater resilience to adverse developments than the one that grew up during the 1990s and 2000s."Stevens' speech largely dealt with the economic costs of this regulatory trend, and so did not go on to offer a fresh view on the merit of the detailed regulatory proposals. (Reported separately below.)Stevens was speaking at a fundraising lunch for the Anika Foundation in Sydney yesterday.The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has recently expressed doubts over the trend for more prescriptive rules on bank capital.Grant Spencer, deputy governor of the RBNZ wrote in an article in the bank's Bulletin that "it may be too early to say whether varying capital requirement will indeed have merit in the NZ situation".The RBNZ has noted that adopting countercyclical macro-prudential policies would trigger the rules versus discretion debate, and the model currently preferred by the Basel Committee appears to be firmly rule-based."If a time-varying macro-prudential policy was to be pursued in New Zealand, this would probably be based on a discretionary rather than rule-based regime, but with clearly disclosed guidance on the criteria used for policy adjustments," Spencer wrote.