After decades of discussion, the walls between commercial and investment banking and insurance have finally been taken down. And despite lingering questions about the size and the riskiness of the large institutions that may emerge, the biggest question to ask is why this took so long.

This paper takes stock of the current state of development of the financial systems in five Central European transition economies (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia) that are also leading EU accession candidates. It presents both a progress report and an...

The Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) employs a well-developed risk-focused regulatory and supervisory regime. Despite this, a clear gap exists in the application of the supervision and regulation regime to financial holding companies. BNM is to be commended for its thoughtful and comprehensive...

Kazakhstan’s financial system remains highly stressed despite large-scale government support; the economy is expected to contract in the near future. The staff report for Kazakhstan’s 2009 Article IV Consultation discusses economic developments and policies. Kazakhstan is better...

This paper reviews key findings of the detailed assessment of the Observance of Standards and Codes in the Financial Sector of the Cayman Islands. Banks in the Cayman Islands operate within a well-defined prudential regulatory framework, generally in accordance with Basel standards, that is,...

The increased presence of foreign banks in a country's domestic banking system necessitates the development of effective cross-border prudential supervision where the consolidated supervision is the essential element. This paper presents foreign bank supervision in terms of division of...