BANK Negara Malaysia (BNM) will continue to engage the international community this year to advocate its views and support collective efforts to address challenges in the global monetary and financial system.
To this end, the central bank will remain focused on strengthening external resilience and fostering strategic collaboration, with greater emphasis on advancing our sustainability agenda and meaningful financial inclusion, it said in its Annual Report 2019 released today.
“Of significance, the bank will continue to strengthen its external financial safety net arrangements, deepen regional financial integration as well as elevate Malaysia’s leadership in Islamic finance,” it said.
The year ahead will also see the central bank assuming chairmanship of the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) Council.
“The bank looks forward to playing a part in further enhancing the effectiveness and stature of the IFSB as a recognised standards-setter for Islamic finance and to complement existing work of other standards setting bodies towards ensuring the stability and resilience of the Islamic financial services industry,” it said.
In 2019, BNM pursued efforts on a number of fronts to strengthen the region’s financial safety net.
To this end, it worked towards enhancing the effectiveness of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan and Korea (Asean+3) Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM) as a liquidity support facility by actively advocating the need to improve accessibility of the CMIM and enhance operational readiness.
“In addition, we established a local currency bilateral swap arrangement with Bank Indonesia and renewed existing swap arrangements with Asean central banks and the Bank of Korea during the year.
“These arrangements enable the participating central banks to access liquidity from each other to meet short-term liquidity needs, which in turn enhances the financial resources that the bank can use in times of need,” it said.
The central bank also continued to build strong relationships with central banks, international organisations and other strategic partners, and had bilateral meetings with counterparts from Bank Indonesia and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
“At the meetings, views were exchanged on economic and financial developments, policy and operational challenges, and potential areas for collaboration to strengthen mutual financial sector resilience and deepen regional financial integration,” it said. — April 3, 2020, Bernama
