News Brief No. 01/80

News Brief: Publication of First IMF Staff Assessment of an Offshore Financial Center

August 21, 2001

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is now undertaking assessments of Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs) to review and analyze the extent to which OFCs meet international banking, securities, and insurance standards, and to determine if further action is required for those standards to be met.

In July 2000, the IMF's Executive Board asked Fund staff to extend financial sector work to include OFCs through a voluntary program of assessments and technical assistance. Staff assessments are designed to help strengthen financial supervision of OFCs and to promote greater cooperation among supervisory authorities.

The IMF is supporting the voluntary publication of staff assessments using the Fund's external website. "Cyprus - Assessment of the Offshore Financial Sector - July 30, 2001" and "Cyprus - Assessment of Implementation of the Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision in Respect of the Offshore Sector - July 30, 2001" represent the first such assessment and are now available on the IMF's website (http://www.imf.org/external/np/ofca/ofca.asp). The assessments were published by the Cypriot authorities on August 20, 2001 on the Central Bank of Cyprus website.