IMF renews its call for bank levy and a revamp of global regulation
THE International Monetary Fund has called for a new world system to dismantle troubled financial institutions and a levy on banks to pay for it.
The IMF’s statement, released last night, comes ahead of meetings here this week among fund officials, the World Bank and leading nations’ finance officials. It urges better international regulatory cooperation and stronger supervision.
Two years after the peak of the worst global financial crisis in generations, the IMF is seeking to keep momentum going for substantive cross-border financial reforms.
“Although important steps have been taken like Basel III… much more remains to be done,” said Jose Vinals, a senior executive at the fund. “We need to work together.”
The Basel III accord on bank capital standards was finalised weeks ago. Earlier this year, the US approved sweeping bank and Wall Street reforms. European nations have been moving along on reforms of their own.
After massive taxpayer-financed bailouts in the last crisis, one of the toughest aspects of the two-year-old push for a regulatory overhaul has been finding a way to ensure that taxpayers don’t get stuck with the bill for the next crisis.