The Governor of the National Bank, Anita Angelovska Bezhoska, participated in the Annual Conference and the Annual General Meeting of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which took place last week in Switzerland. The two events are very important for the development of the international cooperation in the field of monetary policy and financial stability and for improving the communication among the central banks about the key issues that concern central banking operations at global level.
At this year's eighteenth edition of the Annual Conference of the oldest international financial institution, on Friday, in Zurich, governors and other high representatives of central banks, experts from the BIS and professors and researchers from renowned highly educational and research centers discussed one of the most current economic topics in the digitalization era - "Digital Economy and Financial Innovation". The emphasis was placed on the issues about the possible benefits of the financial system from the development of technology, the application of machine learning in the computer systems used in central banking operations, especially in research and production of statistical data, as well as the changes in financial intermediation expected to be triggered by the current financial innovations. At the same time, the participants discussed in more details the overall real effects in the economy of the application of the innovative solutions in the field of finance.
Within the Conference, on these issues, Angelovska Bezhoska exchanged opinions with several colleagues from other central banks, thus referring to the already taken and planned future steps for encouraging the application of financial innovations in our country, and to use them to develop our financial system and provide conditions for access of a larger part of the population to the financial system.
Then, the past weekend, the Governor of our central bank had an active participation in the 89th Annual General Meeting of the BIS, which was traditionally held in Basel. The Meeting was attended by high representatives of the sixty central banks and other monetary institutions that are members of the BIS and have the right to vote when making decisions at such gatherings. Among other things, they discussed and adopted the latest Annual Report of the BIS and the Annual Economic Report of the BIS for 2019. The Economic Report, among other things, emphasizes that the producing of a more appropriate model of global economic growth requires creation of a balance between monetary policy, structural reforms, fiscal policy and macro-prudential measures, at the global level. Moreover, a message was sent that monetary policy cannot be the main driver of economic growth, and that other policy makers also need to be proactive in order to ensure a sustainable intensity of the global economy. The Report separately notes the current effects of the global trade tensions, as well as the risks for the forthcoming period.
At the BIS Meeting, which was attended by Angelovska Bezhoska, several decisions important for the work of this international institution were also adopted.
It is especially important that after the discussions at the Conference and the Meeting, the Board of the BIS endorsed the setup of Innovation Hub. This Hub that will function within the BIS will allow central banks to promote the mutual cooperation in order to identify the relevant trends in technology and within their mandate to support the application of the new technologies in the financial area, but at the same time, in order to continuously maintain financial stability, and to adequately respond to the challenges for new regulatory requirements, which are continuity of the financial innovations.
As a member of the BIS, our central bank will have an opportunity to use the benefits from the work of the Hub, which will be of great benefit for the promotion and modernization of our financial system in the digital era.
The participation of Angelovska Bezhoska in the 18th Annual Conference and the 89th Annual General Meeting of the BIS is yet another confirmation that our central bank is an active participant in the debates and analyses, as well as in making of part of the decisions that are key to the monetary policy and monetary developments in global terms.
During the two important events, the Governor also held bilateral meetings with several colleagues from central banks BIS members.