The mission of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is to serve central banks and financial authorities in their pursuit of monetary and financial stability, to foster international cooperation in those areas and to act as a bank for central banks. In the light of the Bank’s mission, this chapter reviews the activities of the BIS and the groups it hosts for the financial year 2009/10; describes the institutional framework that supports their work; and presents the year’s financial results. In broad outline, the BIS pursues its mission by:
- promoting discussion and facilitating collaboration among central banks;
- supporting dialogue with other authorities that have responsibility for promoting financial stability;
- conducting research on policy issues confronting central banks and financial system supervisory authorities;
- acting as a prime counterparty for central banks in their financial transactions; and
- serving as an agent or trustee in connection with international financial operations.
The BIS promotes international monetary and financial cooperation and coordination through its meetings programmes for central bank officials and through the Basel Process – hosting international committees and standard setting bodies and facilitating their interaction.
In particular, the BIS hosts the Financial Stability Board and supports its mandate: to coordinate at the international level the work of national financial authorities and international standard-setting bodies in order to develop and promote the implementation of effective regulatory, supervisory and other financial sector policies.
The BIS research and statistics function addresses the needs of monetary authorities and supervisory authorities for data and policy insight.
The BIS banking function provides prime counterparty, agent and trustee services appropriate to the BIS mission.