A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a state or formal monetary union, and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monetary base. Most central banks also have supervisory and regulatory powers to ensure the stability of member institutions, to prevent bank runs, and to discourage reckless or fraudulent behavior by member banks.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world." Formed in 1944, started on 27 December 1945, at the Bretton Woods Conference primarily by the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes, it came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international monetary system. It now plays a central role in the management of balance of payments difficulties and international financial crises. Countries contribute funds to a pool through a quota system from which countries experiencing balance of payments problems can borrow money. As of 2016, the fund had XDR 477 billion.
Constantin Mugur Isărescu is the Governor of the National Bank of Romania, a position he has been holding since September 1990, with the sole exception of a period of time of eleven months, during which he served as Prime Minister of Romania. In addition, he is also a member of the Romanian Academy.
The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, CBRT is the central bank of Turkey. Its responsibilities include conducting monetary and exchange rate policy, managing international reserves of Turkey, as well as printing and issuing banknotes, and establishing, maintaining and regulating payment systems in the country. The CBRT is tasked by law to achieve and maintain price and financial stability in Turkey, and has a mandate to use, by its own discretion, whichever policy instrument at its disposal to reach these objectives. Therefore, it has instrument but not goal independence. Since 2006, the CBRT follows a full-fledged inflation targeting regime.
The Bank of Korea is the central bank of the Republic of Korea and issuer of Korean Republic won. It was established on 12 June 1950 in Seoul, South Korea.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is a committee of the Bank of England, which meets for three and a half days, eight times a year, to decide the official interest rate in the United Kingdom.
Money creation, or money issuance, is the process by which the money supply of a country, or of an economic or monetary region, is increased. In most modern economies, money creation is controlled by the central banks. Money issued by central banks is termed base money. Central banks can increase the quantity of base money directly, by engaging in open market operations. However, the majority of the money supply is created by the commercial banking system in the form of bank deposits. Bank loans issued by commercial banks that practice fractional reserve banking expands the quantity of broad money to more than the original amount of base money issued by the central bank.
Inflation targeting is a monetary policy where a central bank follows an explicit target for the inflation rate for the medium-term and announces this inflation target to the public. The assumption is that the best that monetary policy can do to support long-term growth of the economy is to maintain price stability, and price stability is achieved by controlling inflation. The central bank uses interest rates as its main short-term monetary instrument.
The Bank of Canada is a Crown corporation and Canada's central bank. Chartered in 1934 under the Bank of Canada Act, it is responsible for formulating Canada's monetary policy, and for the promotion of a safe and sound financial system within Canada. The Bank of Canada is the sole issuing authority of Canadian banknotes, provides banking services and money management for the government, and loans money to Canadian financial institutions. The contract to produce the banknotes has been held by the Canadian Bank Note Company since 1935.
Romania's current national currency is the leu. However, being bound by its EU accession agreement, Romania has to replace the leu with the euro, as soon as Romania will fulfil all of the four nominal euro convergence criteria as stated in the Treaty of Functioning the European Union in article 140. As of 2022, the only currency on the market is leu, euro is not yet used in shops. The Romanian leu is not part of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, although the Romanian authorities are working to prepare the changeover to the euro. In order to achieve the change of the currency, Romania is required to undergo at least two years of stability within the limits of the convergence criteria. The current Romanian Government in addition established a self-imposed criterion to reach a certain level of real convergence, as a steering anchor to decide the appropriate target year for ERM II membership and euro adoption. As of March 2018, the scheduled date for euro adoption in Romania was 2024, according to the National Plan to Changeover to the Euro. Nevertheless, in early 2021, this date was delayed again to 2027 or 2028, and once again to 2029 in late 2021.
Agustín Guillermo Carstens Carstens, is a Mexican economist who serves as the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements since 1 December 2017. He served as governor of the Bank of Mexico from 1 January 2010 to 30 November 2017. In 2011, Carstens, along with Christine Lagarde, was one of the two final candidates to become the managing director of the International Monetary Fund. He previously served as secretary of finance in the cabinet of Felipe Calderón (2006–09), as deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (2003–06) and as treasurer of the Bank of Mexico. In 2011 he was included in the 50 Most Influential ranking of Bloomberg Markets Magazine. Carstens took up his appointment as the general manager at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, where he was appointed to a five-year term, starting on 1 December 2017.
The Bank of Mozambique is the central bank of Mozambique. The bank does not function as a commercial bank, and has the responsibility of governing the monetary policies of the country. The president of the Republic appoints the governor. The bank is situated in the capital, Maputo, and has two branches, one in Beira and one in Nampula. The Bank of Mozambique is active in developing financial inclusion policy and is a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.
The National Bank of Rwanda is the central bank of Rwanda. The bank was founded in 1964. The current governor of the bank is John Rwangombwa.
Philip Richard Lane is an Irish economist who has served as a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank since June 2019. He previously served as the Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland from 2015 to 2019. He is the ECB's Chief Economist and is seen by many to provide an academic counterweight to the traditional political abilities of ECB President, Christine Lagarde.
Warren L. Coats, Jr., is an economist specializing in monetary policy. He retired from the International Monetary Fund in May 2003 to join the board of directors of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority. He is president of Economic Consulting, providing technical assistance to central banks, and until recently was adviser to the central banks of Afghanistan and Kazakhstan.
Claver Gatete is a Rwandan politician and former ambassador, who currently serves as the Minister of Infrastructure in the Rwandan cabinet. Prior to his appointment in April 2018, he served as Minister of Finance and Economic Planning from 2013 to 2018. He has previously served as the Governor of the National Bank of Rwanda and as Rwanda's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Iceland.
Urjit Patel is an Indian economist, who formerly served as the 24th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and also Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India, looking after monetary policy, economic research, financial markets, statistics and information management. He resigned from his post on 10 December 2018, being the first RBI governor to state personal reasons as a driving factor for resigning. He is the fifth RBI governor to have resigned from his post before his term ended in September 2019.
Nicoletta Batini is an Italian economist, notable as a scholar of innovative monetary and fiscal policy practices. During the crisis she pioneered the IMF work exposing the dangers of excessive fiscal austerity and designed ways to consolidate public debt successfully during phases of financial deleveraging. Since 2003 at the International Monetary Fund, she has served as Advisor of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee between 2000-2003 and was Professor of Economics at the University of Surrey (2007-2012), and Director of the International Economics and Policy office of the Department of the Treasury of Italy’s Ministero dell’Economia e delle Finanze (MEF) between 2013-2015. Batini's fields of expertise include monetary policy, public finance, open economy macroeconomics, labor economics, energy and environmental economics, and economic modeling. She has handled extensive consultancy roles in the public sector in advanced and emerging market countries. She holds a Ph.D. in international finance from the Scuola Superiore S. Anna and a Ph.D. in monetary economics from the University of Oxford.
The 2018 Argentine monetary crisis was a severe devaluation of the Argentine peso, caused by high inflation and steep fall in the perceived value of the currency at the local level as it continually lost purchasing power, along with other domestic and international factors. As a result of it, the presidency of Mauricio Macri requested a loan from the International Monetary Fund.
Nicolás Dujovne is an Argentine economist and former Minister of the Treasury between 2017 and 2019 under the administration of Mauricio Macri.
