Financial Sector Assessment Program After Ten Years Experience And Reforms For The Next Decade

Ten years after its inception, the FSAP has established itself as an important instrument for assessing financial systems around the world. More than three-quarters of the membership have volunteered for FSAP assessments or agreed to do so in the near future, including almost all the G20 countries. Previous reviews have confirmed that the FSAP has helped deepen the understanding of countries’ financial sectors and linkages with the rest of the economy, enriched the policy dialogue, and ensured consistency of Bank and the Fund advice, the last being a feature highly valued by participating countries. As also noted in the Malan Report, the collaborative nature of the FSAP adds value by effectively addressing areas of financial sector policy where developmental and stability concerns are interlinked and overlap and by facilitating knowledge spillovers between the two institutions. These past reviews have noted, however, the need to make the FSAP more flexible, responsive, and continuous, to deepen and strengthen the analytical toolkit, and to integrate the FSAP more closely with the Bank’s and the Fund’s other financial sector work.

Integration of financial sector issues into bilateral surveillance has been a long-standing challenge. Financial stability is a key component of the domestic and external stability of members and is important for the promotion of the “stable system of exchange rates” envisaged under Article IV. But although financial sector issues and policies are at the core of the Fund’s surveillance mandate, their effective integration has been a challenge. To address this challenge, it is proposed to adopt a more risk-based approach to financial sector surveillance by making FSAP stability assessments part of Article IV surveillance for members with systemically important financial sectors.

This background paper reviews the development of the scope of financial stability assessments under the FSAP since the 2014 FSAP Review. The paper summarizes past experiences of such adaptation and observed trends with respect to the coverage of specific topics and then discusses possible directions to adjust the scope of future FSAPs over the next five years given the likely changes in the financial stability landscape. The paper also discusses collaboration with the World Bank as it pertains to the scope of financial stability assessments. It does not examine issues such as analytical approaches, participation, and resources, which are covered elsewhere in the FSAP Review.

The Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) Provides In-Depth Assessments Of Financial Sectors. FSAPs Are Usually Conducted Jointly With The World Bank In Emerging Market And Developing Economies And By The Fund Alone In Advanced Economies. Fsaps Provide Valuable Analysis And Policy Recommendations For Surveillance And Capacity Development. Since The Program’s Inception, 157 Fund Members Have Undergone Individual Or Regional Fsaps. In Recent Years, The Fund Has Been Conducting 12–14 Fsaps Per Year At A Cost Of About 3 Percent Of The Fund’s Direct Spending.

The global financial crisis has magnified the role of Financial Sector Surveillance (FSS) in the Fund's activities. This paper surveys the various steps and initiatives through which the Fund has increasingly deepened its involvement in FSS. Overall, this process can be characterized by a preliminary stage and two main phases. The preliminary stage dates back to the 1980s and early 1990s, and was mainly related to the Fund's research and technical assistance activities within the process of monetary and financial deregulation embraced by several member countries. The first "official" phase of the Fund's involvement in FSS started in the aftermath of the Mexican crisis, and relates to the international call to include financial sector issues among the core areas of Fund surveillance. The second phase focuses on the objectives of bringing the coverage of financial sector issues "up to par" with the coverage of other traditional core areas of surveillance, and of integrating financial analysis into the Fund's analytical macroeconomic framework. By urging the Fund to give greater attention to its member countries' financial systems, the international community's response to the global crisis may mark the beginning of a new phase of FSS.

This report seeks to help the IMF enhance its effectiveness by identifying major recurring issues from the IEO’s first 20 evaluations and assessing where they stand. The IMF’s core areas of responsibility are surveillance, lending, and capacity development. The aim of this report is to strengthen the follow-up process by focusing on key issues that recurred in IEO evaluations, rather than on specific recommendations on their implementation. The IEO believes that a framework of reviewing and monitoring recurring issues would be useful in establishing incentives for progress, strengthening the Board’s oversight, and providing learning opportunities for the IMF.

A key criterion for judging the success of the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) is the extent to which the program has enhanced the IMF’s engagement with policymakers and influenced country policies. This reflects the fact that achieving one of the program’s key objectives—reducing the frequency and severity of financial crises—rests on its ability to encourage policy action by country authorities, either directly or through other bilateral and multilateral activities. The “traction” of FSAPs thus reflects the degree to which the program is seen as useful by the authorities and the effect it has in shaping the domestic policy agenda. And the impact that the FSAP may have on wider domestic and international audiences.

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 has highlighted the resilience of the financial markets and economies from the developing world. This title investigates and assesses the impact and response to the crisis from an emerging markets perspective including asset pricing, contagion, financial intermediation, market structure and regulation.