About the FSB

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) is an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. Find out about the FSB’s mandate, framework and key standards, as well as who runs it. Learn about its history and find links to its member institutions.

Our Mandate

The FSB promotes international financial stability; it does so by coordinating national financial authorities and international standard-setting bodies as they work toward developing strong regulatory, supervisory and other financial sector policies. It fosters a level playing field by encouraging coherent implementation of these policies across sectors and jurisdictions.

The FSB, working through its members, seeks to strengthen financial systems and increase the stability of international financial markets. The policies developed in the pursuit of this agenda are implemented by jurisdictions and national authorities.

More specifically, the FSB was established to:

• assess vulnerabilities affecting the global financial system as well as to identify and review, on a timely and ongoing basis within a macroprudential perspective, the regulatory, supervisory and related actions needed to address these vulnerabilities , and their outcomes
• promote coordination and information exchange among authorities responsible for financial stability
• monitor and advise on market developments and their implications for regulatory policy
• monitor and advise with regard to best practice in meeting regulatory standards
• undertake joint strategic reviews of the international standard setting bodies and coordinate their respective policy development work to ensure this work is timely, coordinated, focused on priorities and addresses gaps
• set guidelines for establishing and supporting  supervisory colleges
• support contingency planning for cross-border crisis management, particularly with regard  to systemically important firms
• collaborate with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to conduct Early Warning Exercises
• promote member jurisdictions’ implementation of agreed commitments, standards and policy recommendations, through monitoring of implementation, peer review and disclosure

The Framework

Embedded in the FSB’s structure is a framework for the identification of systemic risk in the financial sector, for framing the policy sector policy actions that can address these risks, and for overseeing implementation of those responses. The FSB’s structure comprises the Plenary as the decision-making body, a Steering Committee to take forward operational work in between Plenary meetings, and three Standing Committees, each with specific but complementary responsibilities towards the above process:

• The Standing Committee on Assessment of Vulnerabilities (SCAV), which is the FSB’s main mechanism for identifying and assessing risks
• The Standing Committee on Supervisory and Regulatory Cooperation (SRC), which is charged with undertaking further supervisory analysis or framing a regulatory or supervisory policy response to a material vulnerability identified by SCAV.
• The Standing Committee on Standards Implementation (SCSI), which is responsible for monitoring the implementation of agreed FSB policy initiatives and international standards.

The FSB’s decisions are not legally binding on its members – instead the organisation operates by moral suasion and peer pressure, in order to set internationally agreed policies and minimum standards that its members commit to implementing at national level.

As obligations of membership, members of the FSB commit to pursue the maintenance of financial stability, maintain the openness and transparency of the financial sector, implement international financial standards (including the 12 key International Standards and Codes), and agree to undergo periodic peer reviews, using among other evidence IMF/World Bank public Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) reports.

FSB members' adherence to international standards is essential to reinforce the credibility of the FSB's efforts to strengthen adherence by all countries and jurisdictions. Their commitment to implementing international financial standards and disclosing their level of adherence reflects their intent to lead by example. The FSB will foster a race to the top, wherein encouragement from peers motivates all countries and jurisdictions to raise their level of adherence to international financial standards.

Learn more about what the FSB does.

Who Runs the FSB

The Plenary

The Plenary is the sole decision-making body of the FSB and is governed by the FSB charter, Articles of Association, and Procedural Guidelines. It:

• adopts reports, principles, standards, recommendations and guidance developed by the FSB;
• establishes Standing Committees and working groups
• decides on membership of the FSB, seat assignments to members in the Plenary, composition of the Steering Committee and the Standing Committees;
• approves the work programme and the budget of the FSB, and appoints the Chair, Chairs of the Standing Committees, the Secretary General and the external auditor of the FSB.

See who is a member of the FSB Plenary and find out more about our organisation and governance.

The Chair

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, was appointed by the Plenary as Chair of the FSB. He:

• is the principal spokesperson for the FSB and represents the FSB externally
• is selected from and appointed by the Plenary for a term of three years, renewable once
• convenes and chairs the meetings of the Plenary and of the Steering Committee
• acts in accordance with the directions given by the Plenary

The Secretary General

Svein Andresen is Secretary General of the FSB. He:

• directs the Secretariat
• acts in accordance with the instructions of the chair
• appoints Secretariat staff

History of the FSB

The FSB was established in April 2009, as the successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), with a broadened mandate to promote financial stability. In this section read about its short history and find out who has held the position of chair in the past.