2. The objective in introducing this significant amendment to the Capital Accord is to provide an explicit capital cushion for the price risks to which banks are exposed, particularly those arising from their trading activities. Introducing the discipline that capital requirements impose is seen as an important further step in strengthening the soundness and stability of the international banking system and of financial markets generally. Also part of the Amendment and underpinning this is a set of strict qualitative standards for the risk management process which apply to banks basing their capital requirements on the results of internal models. The Committee sees these qualitative standards as reinforcing the continued efforts within the supervisory community to achieve improvements in risk management techniques across the full range of financial market participants.