Some of the world's top banking supervisors have arrived in Bermuda for a series of crucial meetings this week.

Subjects under discussion include the Financial Action Task Force's efforts against money laundering.

And the banking supervisors from the world's top offshore financial centres will also consider the practical aspects of the global implementation of minimum standards for the supervision of international banking groups, especially as it relates to their overseas offices.

The set of minimum standards recommendations, known collectively as the Basle Concordat, was set out in 1975 by the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision.

The Bermuda Monetary Authority and Bermuda's three banks are hosts to participants in the 16th meeting of the Offshore Group of Banking Supervisors today and tomorrow, and a key working committee of the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision on Wednesday and Thursday.

Premier the Hon. David Saul will officially open the latter session, the Joint Working Party of the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision. Finance Minister the Hon. Grant Gibbons will open the meeting of the top offshore supervisors, with remarks from BMA chairman Mr. Mansfield (Jim) Brock.

Governor Lord Waddington will host the entire group for an evening at Government House.

General manager of the Bermuda Monetary Authority Mr. Malcolm Williams said of the meeting: "It's good for Bermuda, its image, its standing. It puts us on the map. It's good for the BMA and it is good for the Island's financial institutions, but particularly the banks, who are in many offshore centres.

"To be hosting basically all the centres in which our banks are operating is excellent for them and for ourselves.'' The Offshore Group meetings have only been recently on the road, initially being hosted steadily in Washington and London.

The bank supervisors who have arrived here, oversee institutions that are dealing with the largest concentration of deposits in the world.

A key contact for them this week will be BMA assistant manager in the banking services division Ms Nives Filice, as a long list of events have been planned outside of the formal meetings.

Top level players at the conference include deputy secretary of the Basle Committee on Banking Supervisors Mr. Charles Freeland.

The president of the Financial Action Task Force, Mr. Ron Noble, the US Under Secretary for Enforcement, Department of the Treasury, is attending as an observer. And executive director of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force Mr. Tim Wren will also be present.

Mr. Colin Powell of Jersey has headed the Basle Committee's Offshore Group of Banking Supervisors since 1981.

The 18 other countries joining Bermuda in the Offshore Group, include Aruba, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Jersey, Lebanon, Malta, Mauritius, Netherlands Antilles, Panama, Singapore and Vanuatu.

The Offshore Group has no enforcement powers over its members but, like the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision, seeks to promote the effective supervision of banks on the peer group principle.

Standards are also set by conditions of membership. They include the legislative framework to ensure the implementation of principles of effective banking supervision.

Member countries have to have a commitment to the application of the principles as embodied in the Concordat and its Supplement, which deals with cross border information exchange among banking supervisors, and the Basle Committee's minimum standards paper.

The necessary administration has to be in place to put this commitment into effect.

At the second meeting, starting on Wednesday, the Joint Working Party will feature dialogue among the G10 (Group of Ten industrialised countries) delegates and representatives of the Offshore Group. It was the central bank governors of the G10 countries that established the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision in 1974.

The objective of the Basle Committee on Banking is the strengthening of collaboration among national authorities in their prudential supervision of international banking.

The Joint Working Party members from the Basle Committee include deputy secretary, Mr. Freeland, who is a representative from the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, Mr. Richard Chalmers, a senior manager from the Bank of England together with others who hold key supervisory posts in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the US.

Mr. Williams from the BMA is joined on the Joint Working Party from the Offshore Group by chairman Mr. Powell and top banking supervisors from the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Jersey and Singapore.

They will discuss the implementation of the Basle committee's minimum standards paper. It has four elements.

The first is that all banks should be supervised by a home authority on a consolidated basis, meaning, for example, that a Bermuda bank in its entirety should be supervised by the BMA. And although there are offices in other countries, the BMA's supervisory role would cover the local bank's overseas offices, as well, with the total operations being viewed as a whole.

Secondly, banks seeking to set up in other jurisdictions, other than their home base, should be required to gain permission from the home regulatory authority, in addition to the foreign country's banking supervisors.

Thirdly, home supervisors should be able to gather information from around the world about banks they oversee, gather information from the overseas banking offices, or the regulatory supervisors of that jurisdiction.

Finally, such supervisors should have the authority, or teeth, to enforce the three provisions above, through formal laws.

The meeting of the Offshore Group Delegates will discuss the practical aspects of the implementation of those guidelines, discuss how countries, like Bermuda, have already moved on the recommendations and some of the difficulties that other countries may have experienced and why they have not.

They will also review the work of the Financial Action Task Force and the role of the Offshore Group in helping to combat money laundering.

MALCOLM WILLIAMS -- "It's good for Bermuda . . . It puts us on the map.''