# BCBS Work Programme 2025–26: Basel Committee work programme and strategic priorities for 2025/26

Source: https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/documents/bcbs-work-programme-2025-26
Last updated: Aug 26, 2026

The Basel Committee's 2025–26 work programme, endorsed by the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision and published in February 2025, sets four themes: Basel III implementation, risk assessment and safeguarding resilience, digitalisation of finance, and liquidity. Under digitalisation it commits to horizon scanning of emerging technologies, monitoring of artificial intelligence-related issues and digital fraud, finalisation of the third-party risk principles, and analytical work on ICT risk management. No AI standard is scheduled.

## At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Authority | [Basel Committee](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/basel-committee) |
| Type | Report |
| Status | In force |
| Published | Feb 4, 2025 |
| Effective | Feb 4, 2025 |
| Applies to | The Committee's own policy, supervisory, and implementation agenda for 2025–26, endorsed by the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision |
| Official text | https://www.bis.org/bcbs/bcbs_work.htm |

## Key points

- Four strategic priorities: Basel III implementation; risk assessment and safeguarding resilience; digitalisation of finance; liquidity.
- Digitalisation workstream: horizon scanning of emerging digital trends, monitoring of AI-related issues, cryptoasset market and standard implementation, and digital fraud from a prudential perspective.
- Delivered items: final Principles for the Sound Management of Third-Party Risk (10 December 2025) and the ICT risk-management range-of-practices report (2 June 2026).
- November 2025 meeting added monitoring of 'recent artificial intelligence use cases by banks' and a consultation on machine-readable Pillar 3 disclosure data.
- May 2026 meeting recorded the Committee's view that frontier AI models may materially change the speed and scale of cyber incidents.
- Approach is monitoring and supervisory exchange, not standard-setting, for AI.

## What changed for banks

The programme confirms that through 2026 the Basel Committee will not write AI-specific rules; banks should expect AI to be examined through the third-party, ICT, operational-resilience, and cyber channels the programme prioritises. It also signals that the Committee's next AI outputs will be observational (range-of-practice reports, newsletters) rather than binding standards.

## Use cases it governs

- [AI governance (general)](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/by-use-case#governance-general)
- [Cybersecurity](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/by-use-case#cybersecurity)
- [Third-party & vendor AI](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/by-use-case#third-party-vendors)

## FAQ

### Is the Basel Committee planning an AI standard?

Not in its 2025–26 work programme. AI is handled as a monitoring item under the digitalisation-of-finance theme, alongside cryptoassets and digital fraud.

### What AI-relevant deliverables has the 2025–26 programme produced?

The December 2025 third-party risk principles, the January 2026 BCBS 239 implementation newsletter, and the June 2026 ICT risk-management report, which identifies AI/ML as an area of skills and control challenge.

## Related documents

- [BCBS ICT Risk Management Report (June 2026)](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/documents/bcbs-ict-risk-management-range-of-practices-2026) — Information and communication technology risk management: range of practices (Jun 2, 2026)
- [BCBS 239 Implementation Newsletter (Jan 2026)](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/documents/bcbs-newsletter-bcbs239-implementation-2026) — Implementation of the Principles for effective risk data aggregation and risk reporting (BCBS 239 Principles) (Jan 6, 2026)
- [BCBS Third-Party Risk Principles (Dec 2025)](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/documents/bcbs-third-party-risk-principles-2025) — Principles for the sound management of third-party risk (Dec 10, 2025)
- [BCBS Digitalisation of finance report (May 2024)](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/documents/bcbs-digitalisation-of-finance-2024) — Digitalisation of finance (May 16, 2024)
- [BCBS AI/ML Newsletter (March 2022)](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/documents/bcbs-newsletter-ai-ml-2022) — Newsletter on artificial intelligence and machine learning (Mar 16, 2022)
- [BCBS Principles for Operational Resilience (2021)](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/documents/bcbs-principles-operational-resilience-2021) — Principles for Operational Resilience (Mar 31, 2021)
- [BCBS 239](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/documents/bcbs-239) — Principles for effective risk data aggregation and risk reporting (Jan 9, 2013)
- [SB 947](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/ai-regulation/documents/ca-sb-947-2026) — Employment: Automated Decision Systems (No Robo Bosses Act) (Sep 30, 2026)

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026. Cite the official text (https://www.bis.org/bcbs/bcbs_work.htm) for the rule and this page for the summary and dates.

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