BIS appoints Günter Pleines to head Banking Department

Press release  | 
07 March 2005

The Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) today announced the appointment of Günter Pleines as Head of its Banking Department. His appointment takes effect on 1 April 2005 and is for a five-year term.

Mr Pleines’s appointment fills the vacancy being created by the retirement of Robert D Sleeper, who has headed the BIS Banking Department since 1999.

In his new role, Mr Pleines will head one of the Bank’s three main departments. As a member of the Bank’s Executive Committee, he will contribute to the general strategic direction of the BIS, and will have overall responsibility for banking operations. These are conducted from the BIS’s Basel headquarters and its Representative Office for Asia and the Pacific, located in Hong Kong SAR.

A German national, Mr Pleines joined the BIS in 1981 and has since assumed increasingly senior responsibilities in the Banking Department. In 1988, he was named to head the BIS Treasury and in 1997 was appointed Deputy Head of Banking.

Before coming to the BIS, Mr Pleines served in various capacities at the Landeszentralbank Hessen, Germany and at the Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt am Main. He trained at Commerzbank AG, Frankfurt am Main, was awarded an advanced degree in business administration by the J W Goethe University, and received executive training at the Deutsche Bundesbank.

BIS General Manager Malcolm Knight warmly thanked Mr Sleeper for his service to the Bank and innovations to its banking operations during his tenure. Welcoming the appointment of Mr Pleines, he said: "Mr Pleines brings to this position a wealth of experience and a full understanding of the BIS’s core business and its banking services. Our central bank customers can be confident that the operations and services of the Banking Department will continue to be in good hands".