BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE 65th Meeting of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) Monetary Council, held in Dominica last Friday (Jul. 10), produced several regional recommendations to promote better strategy for financial stability.
The group of finance ministers from across the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) noted that the recent events in regional and international markets had underscored the importance of adopting a “coordinated regional strategy” for maintaining financial sector stability.
The Council also highlighted the importance of having a “well-developed” and integrated regulatory framework to handle the complex nature of modern financial institutions in the region.
In accordance with this, the Council called on members to support the actions required to address the immediate risks to financial sector stability, and recommended that member states move ahead with the implementation of an effective regulatory framework.
This framework places particular emphasis on the roles of critical stakeholders, including the Monetary Council, the ECCB Board of Directors, the Regulatory Oversight Committee, financial sector associations and those involved in overseeing corporate governance matters.
According to a communiqué issued by the ECCB, “Council agreed to recommend to member governments... support for measures to improve cross-border coordination between the different regulatory agencies in the ECCU, and encourage cooperation and coordination with CARICOM and international counterparts in order to mitigate any future financial fallout stemming from the operations of financial conglomerates.”
The Monetary Council called for greater support of a structured approach to liquidity management by instituting programmes that would improve their fiscal capacity to provide financial assistance to the system.
In relation to alleviating liquidity pressures across the ECCU, the Council encouraged more active participation in the Regional Government Securities Market, a move it agrees would ensure stability in the region’s financial sector.
