International Monetary Fund
World Bank GroupThe Future of Finance
imf seminars event
DATE: October 12, 2014
DAY: Sunday
11:05 AM - 12:35 PM
LOCATION: George Washington University, Jack Morton Auditorium
Overview
As recovery takes hold and we put the crisis behind us challenges and opportunities are being posed for the financial sector and finance as a whole. We have witnessed a depletion of trust and a loss of faith in markets, a deficit that still needs to be addressed. Meanwhile banks are adapting to new market and regulatory realities and are being challenged by the expansion of nonbanks while technology raises the prospect for enhancing financial inclusion but also the potential for disruption. There are evident implications for financial stability, economic growth, and social cohesion from these changes. As a result, economists and policymakers are increasingly coming to the view that economic concerns cannot be divorced from financial changes and ethical concerns. The central question is: how do we make the financial sector not only safer but of better service to all members of society? This seminar will facilitate a discussion of these issues, bringing together leading policymakers and other thinkers on the topic from a broad range of fields including the financial sector, academia and religion. The discussion will reflect upon the continued tendency of the financial sector to prize short-term personal gain over longer-term social purpose; strengthening and de-risking of bank balance sheets with implications for future bank business models; the opportunity for nonbanks and shadow banking to add to economic growth while raising the need to expand the regulatory perimeter; it will also explore implications of the idea that financial markets (and capitalism in general) are only sustainable if there is trust in the system, which in turn requires minimal standards of ethics and integrity.
View other sessions:
Session 1: Ethics and Finance
Session 3: Expanding Role of Nonbanks
Session 4: Technology and Financial Inclusion
Recommended Reading >
Media Partners
The Future of Finance
Session 2: The Changing Role of Banks
Panelists
Moderator: José Viñals
José Viñals is the Financial Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the International Monetary Fund. He is a member of the Financial Stability Board, representing the IMF. Before this, he served as the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Spain after holding successive positions. He has also been Chairman of the ECB’s International Relations Committee; and Chairman of Spain’s Deposit Guarantee Funds.
Laurence Fink
Laurence D. Fink is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock. He has led the firm since its founding in 1988. He was named "CEO of the Decade" by Financial News in 2011 and one of the "World's Best CEO's" by Barron's for eight consecutive years. Mr. Fink earned an MBA degree with a concentration in real estate from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1976 and a BA degree in political science from UCLA in 1974.
Douglas Flint
Douglas Flint CBE: Group Chairman, HSBC Holdings plc. Chairman, Institute of International Finance. Member, Mayor of Beijing’s and Mayor of Shanghai’s International Business Leaders’ Advisory Council, also Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and Association of Corporate Treasurers; independent external member, UK government’s Financial Services Trade and Investment Board; a British Business Ambassador. Fellow, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
Stefan Ingves
Mr. Stefan Ingves is Chairman of the Executive Board and Governor of Sveriges Riksbank. In addition, Mr. Ingves is a member of the European Central Bank General Council and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements and serves as Sweden’s governor in the International Monetary Fund. In 2011, Mr. Ingves was appointed Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision as well as Chairman of the Advisory Technical Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board.
Simon Johnson
Prof. Johnson is the Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He is also a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a co-founder of BaselineScenario.com, and a member of the following: Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers, Office of Financial Research Advisory Committee on Research, FDIC’s Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee and the private sector Systemic Risk Council founded and chaired by Sheila Bair.