The Financial Stability Forum held its first regional meeting today, at the Banco de Mexico in Mexico City. Senior central bank, supervisory, regulatory and ministry of finance representatives from 9 Latin and North American countries and Spain took part in the meeting, as did senior officials from the IMF, the World Bank, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the International Organisation of Securities Commissions, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, and Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos.

Participants in the meeting exchanged views on vulnerabilities in domestic and the international financial system.  They also discussed domestic and international initiatives to strengthen the robustness of the financial system.  They noted that, while the slowdown in the global economy had put some strain on global as well as regional markets, various structural reforms over the last couple of years had made regional economies more resilient to external shocks.

The objective of bringing together regionally based Forum members and non-Forum members is to allow an exchange of views of potential vulnerabilities from a regional perspective, brief non-members on the Forum’s discussions and enable non-members to inject views and perspectives on the Forum’s work.