In November 2010, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) announced arrangements to expand and formalise outreach beyond its membership. To this end, six regional consultative groups1 were established to bring together financial authorities from FSB member and non-member countries to exchange views on vulnerabilities affecting financial systems and on initiatives to promote financial stability.
Today, the Banque centrale du Luxembourg hosted the inaugural meeting of the FSB Regional Consultative Group for Europe in Luxembourg. Members discussed the FSB’s workplan and policy priorities, major financial regulatory reforms and their impacts, and vulnerabilities and regional financial stability issues. Discussions on regulatory reforms and their impacts centred around the framework for dealing with systemically important banks, Basel III capital and liquidity standards, effective resolution regimes, shadow banking and cooperation between authorities in home and host countries. Under the vulnerabilities heading and regional financial stability issues, members discussed the impact of the sovereign debt crisis, in particular, linkages between sovereign debt and financial sector balance sheets and uncertainty in bank funding. The implementation of macroprudential frameworks and policy tools was a second area of discussion under this heading.
The FSB Regional Consultative Group for Europe is co-chaired by Tom Scholar, Second Permanent Secretary, HM Treasury, United Kingdom and Yves Mersch, Governor, Banque centrale du Luxembourg. Membership includes financial authorities from Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland,Sweden, United Kingdom and the Group of International Finance Centre Supervisors.
