13th High-level Meeting for the Arab Region on "Global banking standards and regulatory and supervisory priorities", Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 13-14 December 2017
The Financial Stability Institute (FSI), the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) held their 13th High-level Meeting for the Arab Region in Abu Dhabi.
The meeting was hosted by the AMF and attended by about 170 participants representing various central banks, supervisory authorities and financial institutions in the region as well as senior officials from public and private organisations from around the world. The event was co-chaired by HE Dr Abdulrahman Al-Hamidy, Director General Chairman of the Board of AMF and Mr Fernando Restoy, Chairman of the FSI.
In his opening address, HE Mubarak Rashed Al Mansoori, Governor of the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, elaborated on the adoption of the "after oil strategy" as an opportunity for the financial sector operating in the Arab region to play a leading role.
In his keynote address, HE Mohammad Yousef Al-Hashel, Governor of the Central Bank of Kuwait, shared his views on the challenges the Arab region faces in the context of implementation of regulatory reforms. He mentioned that, thanks to the Basel III regulatory reforms, banks in the region entered the low oil price environment from a position of strength and there are hardly any major signs of deterioration in banks' resilience in general.
Participants discussed recent regulatory developments in different domains and emphasised the importance of the recent agreement achieved for the finalisation of Basel III. They also discussed the implementation challenges associated with the new standards and commented on the ongoing work by the FSB, in cooperation with sectoral standard setters, on the impact of the implemented reforms.
A series of panels covered a number of issues of high relevance for supervisory authorities worldwide, such as the monitoring of the governance of financial institutions, in particular fit and proper analysis, cyber-security and the regulation of central counterparties.
Special attention was devoted to a few issues of special interest to supervisors in the region. These were the impact of oil price developments on economic and financial stability, the need to adjust public intervention procedures in order to both pursue financial stability and promote financial inclusion, and possible strategies to apply the proportionality principle for the regulation and supervision for the relatively small, unsophisticated and well capitalised banks that prevail in the region.
Note to editors
The FSI was jointly created in 1998 by the BIS and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The FSI's main objectives are to: (i) promote sound supervisory standards and practices globally and support full implementation of these standards in all countries; (ii) keep supervisors updated with the latest information on market products, practices and techniques; (iii) provide a venue for policy discussion and sharing of supervisory practices and experiences; and (iv) promote cross-sectoral and cross-border supervisory contacts and cooperation.
These objectives are achieved through the production of FSI Insights on policy implementation and other publications, meetings and conferences with senior officials and FSI Connect, the BIS's web-based learning tool for financial sector supervisors. For more about the FSI, visit www.bis.org/fsi.