The Austrian authorities have been making great efforts since 2003 to enhance the quality of banking supervision and keep up-to-date with banking sector developments. Banks face a reputation risk arising from exposure to money laundering/financing of terrorism risk in both domestic and...

This Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix Paper look at the global spillovers to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) financial system. It finds an uneven degree of spillovers to different segments of the UAE financial system. Regarding domestic equity markets, the combined market capitalization...

Various indicators place Cyprus’s banking system soundness ahead of emerging countries but behind advanced economies. This report discusses financial sector stability in Cyprus, using a combination of accounting-based and market-based indicators, and stress tests. Cypriot commercial banks...

Stress testing is a useful and increasingly popular, yet sometimes misunderstood, method of analyzing the resilience of financial systems to adverse events. This paper aims to help demystify stress tests, and illustrate their strengths and weaknesses. Using an Excel-based exercise with...

The global financial crisis hit Denmark hard, and the recovery has been slow and unsteady. Denmark’s slow growth predates the recent economic crisis, and the economy has underperformed its regional peers. The current account remains in surplus, largely reflecting weak domestic demand...

This Selected Issues paper examines prospects for increasing growth and reducing poverty in the Solomon Islands. The paper highlights that agriculture constitutes the largest sector of the Solomon Islands economy, averaging about 20 percent of GDP throughout the 1990s. The Solomon Islands also...

This paper presents key findings of the Financial System Stability Assessment, including Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes on Monetary and Financial Policy Transparency, Banking Supervision, and Payment Systems for the Kyrgyz Republic. Though the Kyrgyz Republic has made progress...

This Selected Issues paper for Bulgaria highlights that the rapid credit expansion has not raised significant financial stability issues, but has been a key factor in the sharp weakening of the external current account. Although the deficit has been mostly financed by foreign direct investment...

This paper presents key findings of the Financial System Stability Assessment, including Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes on Monetary and Financial Policy Transparency, Banking Supervision, and Payment Systems for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAEs financial sector and...