John A Rolle: Small country interfaces with the world's financial rule-makers

Special address by Mr John A Rolle, Governor of the Central Bank of The Bahamas, at the 13th ASBA-BCBS-FSI High-Level Meeting on Global and Regional Supervisory Priorities, Nassau, 30 October 2018.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

1 Introduction

The Central Bank of The Bahamas is pleased and honoured to be able to co-host this gathering of eminent persons from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Basel Committee on Banking

Supervision (BCBS), the Financial Stability Institute (FSI), and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

My topic tonight is: "How Small Nations Interact with the International Financial Rule-Making Architecture". The core elements in this architecture include:

- Multilateral agencies, among which the IMF is probably the most impactful for small countries, and the BIS the most impactful for the world's central banks;

- Rule-making bodies, among which the Basel Committee is probably the most prominent, but including the international Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), and similar groups, with the Financial Stability Board (FSB) assuming prominence in recent years;

- The ever-growing architecture on financial crime suppression, centred on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF); and

- A range of public, quasi-public, and private groups that create, impose, and/or enforce standards in international finance, among which leading examples include the ratings agencies, SWIFT1, ISDA2, LCH3 and many others.