The Role of the Central Bank of Ireland as an Independent Financial Regulator

The chapter evaluates the extent to which the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) operates as an independent and accountable supervisor. The CBI was established pursuant to the Central Bank Reform Act 2010 as the body responsible for central banking and financial regulation in Ireland. The chapter explains the CBI’s functions and describes the national and EU regulatory landscape within which it operates. It compares the CBI to its predecessor, the Central Bank of Ireland and Financial Services Authority, which was criticized for perceived regulatory and supervisory failures in the lead up to the Irish Banking Crisis in 2008. In doing so, it identifies significant improvements in terms of the CBI’s independence, transparency, and accountability. The chapter also suggests further changes that might be considered in this context.

Bank reform demands monetary reform

The complex and technical subject of bank reform has scarcely been more popular. Events in Cyprus have demonstrated banks are a way of investing money for a return, with all the risk that entails. Van and minibus entrepreneur Dave Fishwick has created a documentary —Bank of Dave— which shows banking can be a simple entrepreneurial function providing a safe return to savers at the entrepreneur’s risk. It’s award-winning and a soar-away popular success. Of course, thanks to regulators, it’s not actually a bank: it’s a savings and loans firm. Whereas these route savings to borrowers, a bank creates credit. That is, banks lend money into existence. It is that distinction, together with other features of the financial system, which has led the world into crisis. It is both one of the least well-understood economic phenomena of our time and the most central to our present difficulties. Yet, astonishingly, Dave Fishwick has struck on a model of ban-king close to a theoretical ideal: he carries his own commercial risks and, even if he could take deposits, he wouldn’t provide cre-dit in excess of savings. It is towards this model the world should move.

New Zealand Reserve Bank Reform

The inflation-targeting approach to central banking was invented in New Zealand, before becoming the global standard during the 1990s. Despite this popularity, significant reforms were introduced to the Reserve Bank Act in late 2018 as part of a two-stage review, notably an expanded mandate and a committee decision-making structure. This article reviews the changes in the light of global and domestic challenges to central banking emerging since the global financial crisis.

Swiss sovereign money vote points up bank reform

Significance The Vollgeld (sovereign money) proposal, which claimed to make the banking system safer by preventing commercial banks creating money through requiring thems to keep 100% of their deposits at the central bank, was complex and economically flawed, However, it attracted anti-system and anti-bank votes and has generated debate in Switzerland and abroad on financial stability and monetary systems. Impacts The Vollgeld idea has never been implemented anywhere, posing uncertainty about economic agents' reactions and the overall impact. The reform, if used to finance budget deficits, would challenge the central bank's independence. Even if the proposal is refined, the power that 'Vollgeld' would give the central bank to determine lending will remain unpopular. Pressure for banking reform and awareness of regulation have risen worldwide since the 2008-09 crisis making other initiatives likely.

US bank reform will aid lenders and lawmakers

Headline UNITED STATES: Bank reform will aid lenders