macro-prudential regulation

ECB: Data demand > data supply

October 20, 2010 7:31 pm by Emma Saunders

Imagine that in January, you will become your country’s chief firefighter, but that the very best reports of smoke currently available are unreliable and intermittent. Scared?

Well, the European Systemic Risk Board is due to launch in January, and the ECB’s vice president has just pointed out that, on current data availability, the Board would struggle to do its job. That job, as a quick reminder, is to “assess and prevent potential risks to financial stability in the EU.” No small task, with markets febrile and bank bail-outs still in vogue.

The ECB has a fair bit of data already, but it is geared towards monetary policy rather than macro-prudential regulation. So, what’s missing? Read more

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Posted in European Central Bank |

IMF: central banks must keep global roles

October 19, 2010 11:33 am by Emma Saunders

The IMF has tried to rally the troops at a meeting in China, urging central bankers to maintain the international co-operation forged during the financial crisis, and looking to Asia to lead the way.

At an IMF-sponsored meeting of central bankers and regulatory luminaries in Shanghai, an “important consensus” was reached, according to PBoC deputy governor Yi Gang, on the need for international co-operation in ensuring strong macro-prudential policies, because systemic risks “are very likely to spread over borders.” In practice, this means central banks and national regulators taking on more international roles.

Central banks also need to take a broader view domestically, said IMF managing director Dominique Strauss Kahn, seeming to suggest that financial stability would be part of central banks’ remits going forward. “Clearly, conventional macroeconomic policies and macro-prudential tools are intrinsically linked, just as price stability and financial stability are intrinsically linked,” Strauss-Kahn said. “We need a holistic approach, which means a changing role for central banks in the years ahead.” Read more

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Posted in International Monetary Fund, People's Bank of China |

Uh-oh: capital rules might *increase* risk

August 5, 2010 6:01 pm by Emma Saunders

Basel policymakers, beware: higher capital requirements for banks can increase systemic risk. Although risks are lower for each bank individually, “systemic linkage” between the banks is higher. Depending on the banks’ balance sheets, this can mean higher systemic risk.

Researchers at the Dutch central bank explain: Read more

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Chris Giles A tiny bit of progress on macro-prudential regulation

July 26, 2010 11:41 am by Chris Giles

For those interested in deckchairs, there is a lot of reshuffling of them going on in British financial regulation, outlined in a Treasury consultation document today. A short summary is: the Bank of England will have much more power to do essentially the same things that the tripartite authorities planned under the previous government.

The existing tripartite Council for Financial Stability and the Bank’s Financial Stability Committee will effectively be merged in function and rebadged as the Financial Policy Committee of the Bank. Like the existing councils, the new FPC will have representatives from prudential regulators and from Treasury. It will also have some outside representation on the 11-strong Committee which will meet four times a year other than at times of crisis.

On the substance of the FPC’s remit, there is a lot of stuff in the Treasury consultation about the way the FPC will operate its tools and a bit of fretting about interaction with monetary policy, but there is still rather little on the macro-prudential tools the FPC will be given. Obviously, this is the important bit and the paucity of information here is disappointing, since it does not go much further than the Bank of England’s discussion document on the role of macro-prudential policy from last November.

But the tools the government is thinking of giving the FPC are the following: Read more

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Posted in Bank of England, Financial Services Authority |