Lesson 5 of 6

The BIS: the central banks' bank, the Basel Process and its statistics

The Bank for International Settlements does not, as a rule, lend to companies or households, yet much of what a lender in Southeast Asia works under passes through it: it hosts the committees that write international banking and payment standards, and it publishes statistics on credit and debt across countries. This lesson explains who its members are, what banking it does, how the Basel Process turns cooperation into standards, which of the region's authorities take part, and how to read its debt service ratio.

Published 15 October 2026