This report on the offshore financial center program contains technical advice and recommendations given by the staff team of the International Monetary Fund in response to Liechtenstein’s request for technical assistance. It provides detailed assessment of observance of the Basel Core...

This paper presents key findings of the Detailed Assessment of the Observance of Standards and Codes in the Financial Sector of Bermuda. The small number of licensed deposit-taking institutions in Bermuda are part of the broader financial intermediation sector. Typically, some 50 percent to 60...

Most financial institutions in the European Union (EU) are still based in one country, but a number of large financial institutions (LCFI) have systemic cross-border exposures. The paper explains how, despite much progress, nationally-segmented supervisory frameworks and national accountability...

The recent wave of foreign investment in China's banks and the prospects of further opening of the banking sector under the WTO agreement suggest that foreign banks are likely to play an increasingly important role in China. This paper takes stock of the involvement of foreign banks in the...

A rapidly growing empirical literature is studying the causes and consequences of bank fragility in present-day economies. The paper reviews the two basic methodologies adopted in cross-country empirical studies-the signals approach and the multivariate probability model-and their application to...

The global financial crisis has highlighted the importance of early identification of weak banks: when problems are identified late, solutions are much more costly. Until recently, Europe has seen only a small number of outright bank failures, which made the estimation of early warning models...

This paper discusses the findings of the assessments on Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision in India. The Reserve Bank of India is to be commended for its tightly controlled regulatory and supervisory regime, consisting of higher than minimum capital requirements; frequent,...

The Banks and trust Companies Act, Financial Services Commission Act, and the Regulatory Act are considered for banking supervision. The assessment is also based on a self-assessment prepared by the Financial Services Commission (FSC). British Virgin Islands (BVI) law provides three classes of...

The Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) employs a well-developed risk-focused regulatory and supervisory regime. Despite this, a clear gap exists in the application of the supervision and regulation regime to financial holding companies. BNM is to be commended for its thoughtful and comprehensive...

The global financial crisis has forced government intervention in major financial institutions in Belgium. This 2008 Article IV Consultation discusses that the boom in energy and food prices in early 2008 caused inflation to spike to well above the euro area average. Executive Directors have...