January 11, 2001



Mr. Walter V. Shipley
Retired Chairman of the Board
Chase Manhattan Bank
270 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10017

Dear Walter:

We would like to thank you for your letter setting 
forth the Working Group on Public Disclosure’s suggested 
improvements in public disclosure by large banks and 
securities firms.  Efforts such as those of your group help 
ensure that market disclosure practices continue to evolve 
and to support public policy goals.  

The principles and specific recommendations developed 
by your group are a useful contribution to efforts by 
financial firms to provide meaningful information about 
their risk profiles to market participants.   The Working 
Group’s suggestions are noteworthy because they synthesize 
the many viewpoints of the leading securities firms and 
banks represented in the group.  

As you suggest, more frequent disclosure of enhanced 
information about market and credit risk would be 
constructive.  We also think that your recommendation for 
disclosure of credit risk based on banks’ internal ratings 
is especially useful.  We appreciate the need to strike a 
balance between quantitative and qualitative information in 
order to convey a meaningful picture of a firm’s risk 
profile.

We hope that the Working Group’s work encourages all 
large banks and securities firms to adopt enhanced practices 
for public disclosure.  As we seek to use market discipline 
more effectively as an adjunct to the supervisory process, 
we look forward to continued discussion with market 
participants about public disclosure.  In particular, we 
thank the members of the group for their offer to 
participate in future advisory efforts.
 
Sincerely,

	
__________________
Laurence H. Meyer 
Governor
__________________
John D. Hawke, Jr.
Comptroller
____________________	
Arthur Levitt, Jr.
Chairman