BIS: Building a resilient financial system

07 February 2012

Keynote speech by Jaime Caruana, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements, at the 2012 ADB Financial Sector Forum in Manila on "Enhancing financial stability - issues and challenges", 7 February 2012.

The uncertain global environment has prompted calls to reconsider or weaken financial reform. Mr Caruana argues that, on the contrary, the current uncertainty makes it all the more important for us to follow through on what we have set out to do. A number of broad principles guide this work:

• financial stability is about resilience and should be prepared in advance;
• preserving financial stability involves a wide range of policy areas;
• a globalised financial system requires global rules;
• focus should stay on the end result to be achieved, namely a system characterised by less leverage, better liquidity management, sounder incentives, less moral hazard, stronger oversight, and more transparency.

With these broad goals in mind, appropriate timetables can be prepared, and there is need to monitor implementation for unintended consequences. The key challenges in carrying forward this agenda are:

• implementing what has been agreed, especially with regard to bank capital;
• designing the right transition given a still weak recovery;
• completing the regulatory reform agenda, notably in the areas of liquidity standards, resolution regimes, OTC derivatives, and the shadow banking system;
• ensuring sound micro- and macro-prudential oversight.

Full speech

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