How Can Regional Institutions Support Reforms to Domestic Financial Systems

More recently, considerable attention has been given to financial regional integration and cooperation, which intensified in the wake of the East Asian financial crisis. Thus, a number of regional initiatives, such as development of regional bond market and credit rating agencies, among others, have been put forward to form part of the foundation of regional financial integration. New regional institutions have been created to support such initiatives. However, these efforts cannot and should not be taken as a substitute for measures needed to strengthen domestic financial systems. To begin with, domestic financial systems in many countries in the Asia-Pacific region have remained weak, and progress to reform them has been highly uneven. This paper attempts to offer some ideas about how regional institutions can support reforms to domestic financial systems.