The Riksbank is also studying various measures for changes in the quantity of money as well as bank lending. These quantities also have varying degrees of co-variation with inflation, but with a rather long time-lag. Altogether, it can be said that capacity utilisation, inflation expectations, and the exchange rate are the most important determining factors underlying inflation forecasts. What has been said summarises the main content of the stabilisation policy regime that was established after 1992. On 1 January 1999, the Riksbank was made formally autonomous of political influence and has since then been governed by an executive board of six members. BIS Review 59/1999  6  3. Shall policy control the quantity of money or inflation directly? Some central banks, previously the German Bundesbank and now the European Central Bank, ECB, have an (unclear) quantity of money target for their policy. These banks endeavour to meet the inflation target by trying to control the expansion of the quantity of money. In fact, there are considerable similarities between the methods of aiming at the quantity of money and at inflation. The banks’ means is the repo rate that can be set to affect the quantity of money or inflation. However, as in the case of inflation, the quantity of money cannot either be directly controlled by the repo rate.
Some of you may know that FAA had its beginnings as a division within the Asian Institute of Finance, to review the quality of programmes being offered by AIF’s affiliated institutes. As the components of a quality assurance framework and process started to come together under the AIF, it became clear that in order to realize the vision of a highly competent and high performing workforce in the financial sector, assuring the quality of the learning programs that serve the industry was vital. This led the Board of AIF to take the decision to establish an independent entity which would spearhead and develop this important role to its full potential. That decision was motivated by two objectives. The first was to ensure that the quality assurance function would be fully independent of any interests in program development or delivery. This is necessary to provide a high level of confidence to the industry which should be able to rely on quality assurance assessments as a basis for decisions on training and development priorities. As a separate agency with a transparent governance structure in  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  place, FAA has been able to build a high level of credibility in providing an independent, objective assessment of the quality of training and development programs in meeting defined learning objectives. The second objective was the desire to contribute towards raising standards on education and development in the area of financial services.