Committee on the Global Financial System
The Committee on the Global Financial System (CGFS), which is chaired by Philip Lowe, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, monitors developments in global financial markets for central bank Governors.
The Committee has a mandate to identify and assess potential sources of stress in global financial markets, to further the understanding of the structural underpinnings of financial markets, and to promote improvements to the functioning and stability of these markets. It fulfils this mandate by way of regular monitoring discussions among CGFS members, through coordinated longer-term efforts, including working groups involving central bank staff, and through the various reports that the CGFS publishes. The CGFS also oversees the collection of the BIS international banking and financial statistics.
The CGFS, formerly known as the Euro-currency Standing Committee, was established in 1971 with a mandate to monitor international banking markets. Its initial focus was on the monetary policy implications of the rapid growth of off-shore deposit and lending markets, but attention increasingly shifted to financial stability questions and to broader issues related to structural change in the financial system. Reflecting this change in focus, the G10 Governors decided on 8 February 1999 to rename the Committee and to revise its mandate. As of January 2010, the Chairman of the CGFS reports to the Global Economy Meeting, which comprises a group of 31 central bank Governors as members.