According to the Basel II framework, subordinated term debt that was originally issued 4 years ago with a maturity of 6 years is considered a part of:

According to the Basel II framework, Tier 1 capital, also called core capital or basic equity, includes

equity capital and disclosed reserves.

Tier 2 capital, also called supplementary capital, includes undisclosed reserves, revaluation reserves,

general provisions/general loan-loss reserves, hybrid debt capital instruments and subordinated

term debt issued originally for 5 years or longer.

Tier 3 capital, or short term subordinated debt, is intended only to cover market risk but only at the

discretion of their national authority. This only includes short term subordinated debt originally

issued for 2 or more years.

An interesting thing to note is the difference between 'subordinated term debt' under Tier 2 and the

'short term subordinated debt' under Tier 3. The distinction is based upon the years to maturity at

the time the debt was issued. The remaining time to maturity is not relevant. For the subordinated

term debt included under Tier 2, the amount that can be counted towards capital is reduced by 20%

for every year when the debt is due within 5 years. This takes care of the time to maturity problem

for Tier 2 subordinated debt. For Tier 3 short term subordinated debt, this is not an issue because

debt will only qualify for Tier 3 if it has a lock-in clause stipulating that the debt is not required to be

repaid if the effect of such repayment is to take the bank below minimum capital requirements.