I applaud the significant progress being made by the International Accounting Standards Committee and look forward to the continued cooperation between the Basel Committee and the IASC toward achieving the goal of harmonization. Official supervision While effective bank level management and meaningful market discipline are crucial elements of an overall strategy for promoting and preserving financial stability, neither can substitute for the critical role played by official supervision. While banks perform functions that are indispensable to the success of any market economy, these same functions, by their very nature, introduce risks that are capable of undermining the prospects for such success. This reality was acknowledged by Adam Smith over two centuries ago in his seminal tract The Wealth of Nations. And it is with this fundamental reality in mind that governments have long recognized that banking and other financial institutions must be subject to at least some form of regulation and official oversight. The reasons for official supervisory intervention in the banking and financial system can be summed up as promoting financial stability and minimizing systemic risk. This is a broad mandate – to ensure that markets operate in a fair, transparent, and efficient manner, and that participants comply with the rules of the game. To successfully fulfill this critical responsibility, it is clear that the fundamental approach, scope and methodologies of official supervision must evolve in line with the way financial institutions manage their activities, which increasingly is along business lines rather than legal entities.
Serious measures to ensure relevant competencies and independence will greatly enhance boards’ effectiveness and go a long way toward ensuring they perform their increasingly critical role in overseeing the decisions of senior management. The role of senior management, in turn, is to set the business strategy, oversee day-to-day decisions made within the organization, and ensure their consistency with long-term objectives and policies as determined by the board. There are several aspects to effective bank-level management. First, I would underscore the importance of good corporate governance, the basic elements of which include: •  Independent and competent outside directors, as I mentioned a moment ago;  •  Capable and experienced management;  •  A coherent corporate strategy and business plan; and,  •  Clear lines of responsibility and accountability. Together, these elements contribute to an overall operating process conducive to long-term health and prosperity. A tightly run ship with a disciplined crew led by an experienced and competent cadre of officers is far better able to survive a long journey that will inevitably confront sudden storms. Closely related to good corporate governance and critical to any banking institution’s well-being is a rigorous internal control apparatus. Of course, effective internal control systems have always been centrally important to sound banking.