BOK governor named chair of BIS financial system committee

Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong has been appointed as the chairman of the Committee on the Global Financial System (CGFS) at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

His three-year term started Nov. 1, according to the BIS and South Korea’s central bank on Wednesday.

Rhee succeeds Philip Lowe, the CGFS chair since June 2018. Lowe is the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

The CGFS is a central bank forum at the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS that monitors financial sector developments and analyzes their implications for financial stability and central bank policy.

The committee holds meetings four times a year as well as emergency meetings. Recently, it met to discuss the Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse bankruptcies.

During the 2008 global financial crisis, it warned about the accumulation of financial imbalances before the crisis and discussed global quantitative easing measures.

RHEE, A VETERAN ECONOMIST

A veteran economist, Rhee has been the Bank of Korea governor since April 2022.

He previously served as the director of the Asia and Pacific Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Before joining the IMF in 2014, he served as chief economist at the Asian Development Bank and Korea’s Sherpa for the country’s G-20 presidential committee when Korea hosted the group’s summit in 2010.

Earlier, he served as vice chairman of Korea’s Financial Services Commission in 2008.

Industry watchers said Rhee’s assumption of the CGFS chair, leading the committee’s response to global crises, is significant in that Korea was bailed out by IMF-led aid during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, known in Korea as the “IMF Crisis.”

The BIS committee, launched in 1971 as the Euro-currency Standing Committee, changed its name to the CGFS in 1999 following the Asian financial crisis.

The CGFS chairmanship has been held by such figures as the deputy governor of the Bank of Japan and the vice chairman of the US Federal Reserve.

After the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the position was raised to the level of central bank governor.

Central bankers who have served as CGFS chair include Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada, and William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Write to Jin-gyu Kang at josep@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.