People: Wilkins part of new IMF fintech team; Kanungo appointed as RBI deputy

Washington, DC: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has appointed Carolyn Wilkins – deputy governor at the Bank of Canada – as the central banking community’s sole representative on its new fintech group.

Wilkins forms part of a 14-person high level advisory group that will work with the IMF’s Interdepartmental Working Group on Finance and Technology to understand the economic and regulatory implications of fintech development.

“We are grateful that such distinguished figures in the field of finance and technology have agreed to serve in the group, and look forward to their expert advice and views, and are confident that this exchange will greatly enrich the scope and quality of the IMF’s work in this area,” IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said.

The Bank of Canada has been one of the central banks leading the charge in the field of fintech, recently launching ‘Project Jasper’ – a distributed ledger test which examines potential uses for central bank-issued digital currency.

As well as being the only central banker in the group, Wilkins is one of only two women.

India: B P Kanungo has been named deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), replacing veteran Rama Subramaniam Gandhi, who retires after almost 37 years at the central bank.

Like Gandhi, Kanungo is a career central banker and has risen through the ranks at the RBI to his current position as executive director in charge of the foreign exchange, debt management and government departments.

Assuming that the deputy governor portfolios remain unchanged, Kanungo will be in charge of departments including currency management, external operations, government and bank accounts, IT, foreign exchange and legal. He is expected to assume the role in early April.

Gandhi joined the bank in 1980 and has gained experience in a variety of fields, including periods in charge of the central bank’s payment systems department as well as currency operations and human resources.

He was appointed deputy governor in 2014 following a stint as executive director. He also served for three years as executive assistant to the governor.

In addition to his career at the RBI, Gandhi also served briefly at the Securities Exchange Board of India.

Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has appointed Stefan Gannon, formerly its general counsel, to lead the central bank’s new resolution office.

The office will establish resolution policy standards for banks, define resolution strategies and conduct resolvability assessments of banks, work with banks to remove impediments to their orderly resolution, and develop the operational capability necessary to execute orderly resolution, the HKMA said.

HKMA chief executive Norman Chan said the establishment of the office marked a “milestone” in the development of an operational resolution regime in Hong Kong, helping promote the city as a “major international financial centre”.

Karen Kemp takes over from Gannon as general counsel. She joined the central bank in 1995 from legal firm Lovells. Kemp served as deputy general counsel before moving to her current position of executive director for banking policy. She will leave her post on April 7 to take up the new position.

Kemp will be replaced by Daryl Ho, the HKMA’s division head for financial stability surveillance. Ho joined the central bank in 2001 and has worked in a variety of departments including research, market development and monetary operations.