Accountability of the Bank of England
Accountability of the Bank of England

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Treasury Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2011-11-08

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780215038531

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In this report the Treasury Committee argues that governance at the Bank of England must be strengthened to reflect its new powers. The Court of the Bank of England should be transformed into a smaller, more expert Supervisory Board with its own staff. It should decide on the allocation of resources among the Bank's different areas of work and its minutes should be published. The Supervisory Board should have the power to conduct and publish retrospective reviews of Bank policies and conduct. The Board should also have a statutory responsibility to respond to reasonable requests for information from Parliament. The Chancellor should be responsible and accountable in a period of financial turbulence where public money is at risk, and in these circumstances the Chancellor should be given a temporary and limited power to direct the Bank. The Committee proposes a means by which this can be achieved without requiring the use of the 'nuclear weapon' of the 1946 Act, which would undermine Bank of England independence across the board. Other recommendations include: the Governor should be appointed for a single, non-renewable term of 8 years; thorough parliamentary scrutiny of the new macro-prudential tools to be given to the FPC at the time of their introduction; the Treasury should give guidance to the FPC that it adopt published indicators for defining and gauging financial stability; the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) and the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) should have a majority of external members.

Unelected Power
Unelected Power

Author: Paul Tucker

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-09-10

Total Pages: 662

ISBN-13: 0691196303

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Tucker presents guiding principles for ensuring that central bankers and other unelected policymakers remain stewards of the common good.

A new approach to financial regulation
A new approach to financial regulation

Author: Great Britain. Treasury

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2010-07-26

Total Pages: 76

ISBN-13: 9780101787420

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This document outlines the Government's programme of reform to renew the UK's system of financial regulation. It believes that weaknesses were inherent in the tripartite approach whereby three authorities - the Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury - were collectively responsible for financial stability. The Government will create a new Financial Policy Committee (FPC) in the Bank of England with primary statutory duty to maintain financial stability. The FPC will be given control of macro-prudential tools to ensure that systemic risks to financial stability are dealt with. This macro-prudential regulation must be co-ordinated with the prudential regulation of individual firms. Operational responsibility for prudential regulation will transfer from the FSA to a new subsidiary of the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority. The third development is the creation of a dedicated Consumer Protection and Markets Authority (CPMA) with a primary statutory responsibility to promote confidence in financial services and markets. Protection of consumers will be delivered though a strong consumer division within CPMA. The document also covers: the issue of market regulation; co-ordination of the regulatory bodies in a potential crisis; the next steps, including public consultation, legislative passage and operational implementation. The Government will, after considering responses, produce more detailed proposals - including draft legislation - for further consultation in early 2011, with a view to having legislation on the statute book within two years.

Issues in the Governance of Central Banks
Issues in the Governance of Central Banks

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 9789291317912

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This report by the Central Bank Governance Group presents information intended to help decision-makers set up governance arrangements that are most suitable for their own circumstances. The report draws on a large body of information on the design and operation of central banks that the BIS has brought together since it initiated work on central bank governance in the early 1990s. The need to deal with chronic inflation in the 1970s and 1980s prompted the identification of price stability as a formal central bank objective and led to a significant reworking of governance arrangements. The current global financial crisis could have equally important implications for central banks, particularly with respect to their role in fostering financial stability. Although it is too early to know how central banking will change as a result, the report takes an important first step in identifying governance questions that the crisis poses.

The Long Journey of Central Bank Communication
The Long Journey of Central Bank Communication

Author: Otmar Issing

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2019-09-24

Total Pages: 103

ISBN-13: 0262537850

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A leading economist and former central banker discusses the evolution of central bank communication from secretiveness to transparency and accountability. Central bank communication has evolved from secretiveness to transparency and accountability—from a reluctance to give out any information at all to the belief in communication as a panacea for effective policy. In this book, Otmar Issing, himself a former central banker, discusses the journey toward transparency in central bank communication. Issing traces the development of transparency, examining the Bank of England as an example of extreme reticence and European Central Bank's President Mario Draghi as a practitioner of effective communication. He argues that the ultimate goal of central bank communication is to make monetary policy more effective, and describes the practice and theory of communication as an evolutionary process. For a long time, the Federal Reserve never made its monetary policy decisions public; the European Central Bank, on the other hand, had to adopt a modern communication strategy from the outset. Issing discusses the importance of guiding expectations in central bank communication, and points to financial markets as the most important recipients of this communication. He discusses the obligations of accountability and transparency, although he notes that total transparency is a “mirage.” Issing argues that the central message to the public must always be that the stability of a nation's currency is the bank's priority.

Making a Modern Central Bank
Making a Modern Central Bank

Author: Harold James

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-09-17

Total Pages: 569

ISBN-13: 1108835015

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This authoritative guide to the transformation of the Bank of England into a modern inflation-targeting independent central bank examines a revolution in monetary and economic policy and the modernization of British institutions in the late twentieth century.

Corporate Governance and Accountability of Financial Institutions
Corporate Governance and Accountability of Financial Institutions

Author: Jonas Abraham Akuffo

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-01-06

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 3030640469

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The presence of sound corporate governance in a financial institution is important in maintaining the confidence of both the market and the public. The power that corporate governance holds over the success of some of the largest financial institutions in the world is not to be downplayed. This book methodically assesses the quality of corporate governance and mechanisms of accountability disclosures to various stakeholders. It is further intended to provide fresh insights into some specific corporate governance recommendations to help improve good governance in financial institutions, particularly in the United Kingdom and the EU but will also be applicable to other major economies. It explores what, when and how corporate governance has changed the financial institution functions and corporate executive behaviour by critically reviewing the pre- and post-financial crisis theoretical and empirical literature. Increasingly driven by the nature of complications, complexities and opacity in the operations of financial systems, corporate governance reporting plays an important role in the financial sector. It will provide insights into corporate governance disclosures over a long-term basis. This book should be a valuable asset to support the research of practitioners, students and all academics due to its stimulating and reflective insights into this fascinating topic.

Till Time's Last Sand
Till Time's Last Sand

Author: David Kynaston

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-09-07

Total Pages: 897

ISBN-13: 140886858X

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____________________ The authorised history of the Bank of England by the bestselling David Kynaston, 'the most entertaining historian alive' (Spectator). 'Kynaston's aim is to provide a history of the Bank for the general reader and in this he triumphantly succeeds, providing a worthy complement to the notable series of books on different periods of the Bank's history ... wonderfully readable' Financial Times 'Not an ordinary bank, but a great engine of state,' Adam Smith declared of the Bank of England as long ago as 1776. The Bank is now over 320 years old, and throughout almost all that time it has been central to British history. Yet to most people, despite its increasingly high profile, its history is largely unknown. Till Time's Last Sand by David Kynaston is the first authoritative and accessible single-volume history of the Bank of England, opening with the Bank's founding in 1694 in the midst of the English financial revolution and closing in 2013 with Mark Carney succeeding Mervyn King as Governor. This is a history that fully addresses the important debates over the years about the Bank's purpose and modes of operation and that covers such aspects as monetary and exchange-rate policies and relations with government, the City and other central banks. Yet this is also a narrative that does full justice to the leading episodes and characters of the Bank, while taking care to evoke a real sense of the place itself, with its often distinctively domestic side. Deploying an array of piquant and revealing material from the Bank's rich archives, Till Time's Last Sand is a multi-layered and insightful portrait of one of our most important national institutions, from one of our leading historians. ____________________ 'The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street has been waiting for a biographer who could do justice to the richness of her story ... This is the work of a scholar with a gift for illuminating every square inch of each enormous canvas he chooses to paint ... Kynaston brings characters large and small to life' Literary Review 'full of human detail ... an exemplary narrative history, with the archives plundered judiciously and plenty of focus on people and their quirks ... rendered on an entertainingly human scale' The Times 'A triumph ... this portrait of the Bank of England really is fascinating, at times even gripping' Sunday Telegraph

A new approach to financial regulation
A new approach to financial regulation

Author: Great Britain. Treasury

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2011-02-17

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 9780101801225

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This document presents more detailed proposals for financial regulation following on from the consultation paper "A new approach to financial regulation: judgment, focus and stability" (July 2010, Cm. 7874, ISBN 9780101787420) and continuing policy development by the Treasury, Bank of England and Financial Services Authority. The Government's reforms focus on three key institutional changes. First, a new Financial Policy Committee (FPC) will be established in the Bank of England, with responsibility for 'macro-prudential' regulation, or regulation of stability and resilience of the financial system as a whole. Second, 'micro-prudential' (firm-specific) regulation of financial institutions that manage significant risks on their balance sheets will be carried out by an operationally independent subsidiary of the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). Thirdly, responsibility for conduct of business regulation will be transferred to a new specialist regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Individual chapters cover: Bank of England and Financial Policy Committee; Prudential Regulation Authority; Financial Conduct Authority; regulatory process and co-ordination; compensation, dispute resolution and financial education; European and international issues; next steps; how to respond; impact assessment. The chapters contain significant detail on how the legislative framework will be constructed in order to deliver the Governments' priorities for the framework. The Government will consult on these proposals with a view to publishing a draft bill in spring 2011.

How Do Central Banks Talk?
How Do Central Banks Talk?

Author: Alan S. Blinder

Publisher: Centre for Economic Policy Research

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 9781898128601

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Not long ago, secrecy was the byword in central banking circles, but now the unmistakable trend is towards greater openness and transparency. This, the third Geneva Report on the World Economy, describes and evaluates some of the changes in how central banks talk to the markets, to the press, and to the public. The report first assesses the case for transparency ? defined as providing sufficient information for the public to understand the policy regime ? and concludes that it is very strong, based on both policy effectiveness and democratic accountability. It then examines what should be the content of communication and argues that central banks ought to spell out their long-run objectives and methods. It then investigates the link between the decision-making process and central bank communication, drawing a distinction between individualistic and collegial committees. The report concludes with a review of the communications strategies of some of the main central banks.