Basel II

George French is Deputy Director for Policy and Examination Oversight in the FDIC's Division of Supervision and Consumer Protection. Prior to assuming his current duties in June, 2002, he was Deputy Director of the Division of Insurance, where he was involved extensively in the development of new FDIC programs to monitor and report on emerging macro risks at the national and regional level. 

George began his FDIC career in 1986 as a Financial Economist in the Division of Research and Statistics. His work in the Research Division encompassed a variety of topics including the measurement of FDIC loss exposure arising from failing banks, the pricing of deposit insurance, and the development of regulatory policy towards troubled financial institutions.

Prior to joining the FDIC, George was an Assistant Professor of Economics at Tulane University. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University and a B.A. from Princeton University. He lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife Sarah Wright and his son Johnston.

Katherine Wyatt is the Director of the Financial Services Research Unit at the New York State Banking Department. Katherine has served as an advisor to the New York State Superintendent of Banks on Basel II initiatives since 1999, and has published research on the possible impact of changes in capital requirements for New York State-chartered banks. She has represented the Conference of State Bank Supervisors at federal banking agency Basel II meetings, and testified before the United States Senate Banking Committee on the Basel II proposals.

Under her direction, the Financial Services Research Unit’s activities have expanded to include publication of regular reports on the New York State economy and financial services in the State, as well as research papers on banking and consumer issues. Prior to joining the Banking Department, Katherine was a consultant with the Financial Services division of KPMG. She received her Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 1997.

Mr. Natter served as deputy chief counsel of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, where his responsibilities included the development and review of all of that agency’s regulatory undertakings from 1995 through 2004. At the OCC, Mr. Natter also was responsible for the legal department’s securities and corporate practices division, bank structure division and legislative affairs office. The legal department of the OCC’s New York and Chicago offices reported directly to Mr. Natter. Prior to the OCC, Mr. Natter served as a senior staffer for eight years on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and was the Committee’s Republican chief counsel from 1989 through 1995. Prior to the Senate, Mr. Natter was a senior counsel at the legal department of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Natter has written extensively on financial services legal and policy issues, and is often asked to speak at financial institution conferences and seminars and cited in the industry’s leading publications for his expertise in the financial services field.

Mr. Natter received his undergraduate degree from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute and his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. In 1979, he was awarded an LL. M. degree with highest honors from the George Washington University National Law Center. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.

Senior Advisor for the Promontory Financial Group in Washington, D.C. His specialty is Basel II, internal Economic Capital, and more broadly, the measurement, management, regulation, and supervision of risk at major financial institutions.
 
From 1999 to 2006, Mr. Mingo was founder and Managing Director of Mingo & Co., a consulting firm specializing in the measurement, management, and regulation of bank risk. He served as the senior advisor to the RMA Capital Working Group, a group consisting of the heads of Economic Capital at each of the major banking companies in the U.S. and Canada. The RMA Capital Working Group has produced over two dozen technical papers on the Basel II process and the internal risk measurement procedures pertaining to Basel II at major institutions. At Promontory, Mr. Mingo continues in his role advising the RMA Group as well as individual members of the Group.
 
During most of the 1990’s, Mr. Mingo was Senior Advisor, Division of Research & Statistics, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System. His areas of responsibility included policy and research pertaining to bank capital standards, risk management of banks, and resolution of troubled institutions. He was co-chair of the System Task Force on Internal Credit Risk Models and a member of the System Task Force on Staff Competencies, Compensation, and Coordination. Mr. Mingo played a key role in the early recognition by Federal Reserve staff of the inefficiencies associated with the Basle capital standard, along with its ineffectiveness as a soundness measurement for large, complex banking organizations.

Mr. Mingo spent the 1980's as a consultant, first as Managing Director, BEI Golembe, Inc. and then as a founding principal of the Potomac Financial Group. During this time, Mr. Mingo’s principal area of activity was in the merger and acquisition arena, with special emphasis on capital planning and the financial restructuring of troubled banks and thrifts. He successfully managed several of the largest branch divestitures in history at that time.

During the 1970's, Mr. Mingo was actively involved in the setting of bank regulatory policy, first as Senior Research Division Officer at the Federal Reserve Board and next as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Capital Markets Policy. He was instrumental in the passage of the 1980 legislation deregulating deposit interest ceilings. He appears often as a speaker on regulatory matters and his research has appeared in such journals as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Banking and Finance, and the American Economic Review. Mr. Mingo received his Ph.D. in economics from Brown University and a B.A., also in economics, from Yale University.

** Details to be published shortly