Central Bank Directory highlights rise in female central bank governors

The 2012 edition of the Central Bank Directory, published by Central Banking Publications, unveils a 50% rise in female central bank governors in the world compared with 2011.

Belarus, Kyrgyz Republic, Samoa and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City all welcomed new female governors in 2011, taking the number of female governors in the world up to 12. Despite this increase, only 6.3% of all central bank governors are women.

The last 12 months saw the appointment of 33 new governors; with three vacancies still open at the end of December. As a result, 17% of central banks have a new leader, with Europe accounting for nearly a third of all new governor appointments in the last year.

EU staff numbers rise
The 309 page directory, which lists information and contact details of the world's central banks, also reveals that the number of central bankers in the European Union now stands at 61,653, a 4.1% increase on last year.

The growth in the number of central bankers is unbalanced across Europe, as non-eurosystem EU central banks increased their staff by 13.6% in the last year while the member states have only seen the addition of 933 staff, a 1.9% rise.

Despite the extra staff in non-eurosystem EU central banks, the Eurosystem still has double the number of staff per 100,000 people in the countries' populations, with a staff ratio of 14.77 per 100,000 of the population within the Eurosystem compared to 7.36 members of staff for each 100,000 people across the rest of the EU's central banks.

Globally, there was a slight decrease in the number of central bank employees from December 2010 to December 2011 , down 112 from last year. This indicated a shift in central banks' staffing as there was an increase in staff recorded in the 2011 edition of the directory. The lower figure is also surprising given this latest directory includes a new central bank, that of South Sudan.

Migration east
Twenty-five central banks maintain stations overseas with representative offices. While the number of central bank representative offices has stayed the same, at 60, there has been a movement east. The National Bank of Austria closed its representative office in London, whilst the Reserve Bank of Australia opened an office in Beijing.