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This note intends to provide advice to bank supervision and resolution authorities and policymakers seeking to deal with opaque bank ownership or significant overhang of related-party exposures.
At the request of the authorities of the Republic of Benin (“Benin”), a team consisting of multiple IMF departments (FAD, LEG and MCM) conducted a governance diagnostic mission from June 7 to September 27, 2022. In keeping with the IMF’s 2018 Framework for Enhanced Engagement on Governance, the diagnostic focused on weaknesses in governance and vulnerabilities to corruption in areas deemed to be macro-critical, including: (i) contract execution and protection of property rights; (ii) the legal and institutional framework for anti-corruption efforts; (iii) Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT); (iv) financial sector supervision; and (v) public finance governance (tax policy, tax and customs administration, public financial management).
This paper highlights the distinct challenges and suggests practical solutions to the effective regulation, supervision, and crisis management for public banks. It acknowledges that public banks exist for variety of reasons (legacy, ideology, public policy) and will likely remain a feature of financial systems in a number of countries. On this basis, it provides advice on how to best incorporate public banks in the regulatory paradigm commensurate with their risk profiles.
The economy recovered strongly in 2021, following an unprecedented real output contraction in 2020. However, the outlook remains precarious amidst projected future low growth, high unemployment and adverse debt dynamics, and the recovery pace is unlikely to be sustained. Ample buffers allowed the financial system to handle the COVID-19 shock relatively well, but domestic and external downside risks remain substantial—with potential implications for asset quality, profitability, and solvency.
The financial system appears to be broadly resilient, has strong capital and liquidity buffers but remains relatively small and dominated by banks, especially few state-owned banks. Household and corporate indebtedness and public debt are low. The macroprudential policy framework features both financial stability and development objectives. The recently passed Financial Sector Omnibus Law (FSOL) will make notable reforms to the financial sector.
The global financial system has shown remarkable resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite a sharp decline in economic activity and the initial financial market upheaval in March 2020. This paper takes stock of the factors that contributed to this resilience, focusing on the role of monetary and financial policies. In response to the pandemic-induced crisis, major central banks acted swiftly and decisively, cutting policy rates, introducing new asset purchase programs, providing liquidity support for the banking system, and creating several emergency facilities to sustain the flow of credit to the real economy. Several emerging market central banks also deployed asset purchase programs for the first time. While the pandemic crisis has underscored the importance of policies in preventing calamitous financial outcomes, it has also brought to the fore some unintended consequences of policy actions—in particular, of providing prolonged monetary policy support and applying regulation to specific segments of the financial system rather than taking a broader approach—that could undermine financial stability in the future.
Globally, financial institutions have increased their holdings of domestic sovereign debt, tightening the linkage between the health of the financial system and the level of sovereign debt, or the “financial sector-sovereign nexus,” during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In South Africa, the nexus is still relatively moderate, albeit rising, and the increased focus of the Prudential Authority on the associated risks provide reassurance. Options to mitigate such risks through the use of regulatory measures can be explored. However, absent the necessary fiscal consolidation and structural reforms, risks from the nexus to both the financial system and the sovereign will increase.
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the largest global economic crisis in more than a century. In 2020, economic activity contracted in 90 percent of countries, the world economy shrank by about 3 percent, and global poverty increased for the first time in a generation. Governments responded rapidly with fiscal, monetary, and financial policies that alleviated the worst immediate economic impacts of the crisis. Yet the world must still contend with the significant longer-term financial and economic risks caused by, or exacerbated by, the pandemic and the government responses needed to mitigate its effects. World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery examines the central role...
The Baltics are about to be thrust onto the world stage. With a 'belligerent' Vladimir Putin to their east (and 'expansionist' NATO to their west), Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are increasingly the subject of unsettling headlines in both Western and Russian media. But how real are these fears, subject as they are to media embellishment, qualification and denial by both Russia and the West? What do they mean for those living in the Baltics - and for the world? Based on her extensive research and work as a journalist, Aliide Naylor takes us inside the geopoltitics of the region. Travelling to the heart of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania she explores modernity in the region that birthed Skype, investigates smuggling and reports of troop movements in the borderlands, and explains the countries' unique cultural identities. Naylor tells us why the Baltics matter, arguing persuasively that this region is about to become the new frontline in the political struggle between East and West.