People: First governor of Congo central bank dies aged 92

Democratic Republic of the Congo: The first governor of Congo’s central bank, Albert Ndele Mbamu, died in Belgium on April 1, aged 92. Ndele had served briefly as finance minister in an interim government before being named head of the National Bank of Congo (now the Central Bank) in 1961. The central bank did not begin operating until three years later.

Ndele served until 1970, during the first five years of president Mobutu Sese Seko’s 32-year rule. During that time, the country introduced a new currency, the zaïre, in 1967. Mobutu renamed the country itself Zaïre a few years later. Ndele was briefly finance minister again in 1970.

The former governor was the first Congolese student to graduate from the University of Lovanium in Kinshasa, and did postgraduate work at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.

Canada: The Bank of Canada announced the departure of deputy governor Paul Beaudry on April 4. Beaudry will leave at the end of July to return to his academic position at the University of British Columbia, where he is a professor of economics.

The bank’s board appointed Beaudry a deputy governor in February 2019. He is one of two deputy governors charged with financial system oversight. He also oversees macroeconomic analysis for the central bank’s monetary policy decisions.

Governor Tiff Macklem called Beaudry “a crucial member of the governing council team during one of the most challenging periods in the bank’s history”.

Beaudry has a PhD in economics from Princeton University. He has been a full professor at UBC since 1996.

Sweden: Henry Ohlsson will step down as deputy governor of the Sveriges Riksbank at the end of June. In a March 22 press release, the central bank said Ohlsson will recuse himself from executive board and monetary policy meetings until he departs.

Ohlsson was in the middle of his second term as deputy governor, which was due to expire in January 2026. He has been deputy governor since January 2015.

Ohlsson has been a professor of economic history at the University of Uppsala since 2003, Sweden’s oldest university. He was a professor at the University of Gothenburg between 1999 and 2003. He is also a member of the Royal Swedish Society of Sciences.

The Riksbank’s general council thanked Ohlsson for his service to the central bank. It acknowledged his “important and insightful knowledge to the Riksbank’s work on issues related to wage formation and the labour market in Sweden”.

Japan: The Bank of Japan has named Seiichi Shimizu executive director for monetary policy, Reuters reported on March 20. He succeeds Shinichi Uchida, who became deputy governor in March.

Shimizu is currently executive director of the BoJ’s payment and settlement systems department. He was previously director-general of the monetary affairs department from mid-2020, where he was called “Mr YCC” for his expertise managing the central bank’s yield curve control policy. He also served as director-general of the financial markets department.

The Bank of Japan has maintained a negative interest rate since 2016, and introduced yield curve control in the same year.

Jamaica: The Jamaican government appointed Richard Pandohie as a non-executive member of the central bank’s board of directors. He will serve until April 2025. The Bank of Jamaica’s statute provides for six non-executive board members, named by the finance minister to unfixed terms.

Pandohie is chief executive of Seprod, a local manufacturing business. He has worked in executive positions at Coca-Cola and British American Tobacco. He also served as president of the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

He has a bachelor’s in chemical engineering from the University of the West Indies and an MBA from McGill University in Montreal.

Washington, DC: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency named Prashant Bhardwaj its chief financial technology officer. He will also be a deputy comptroller. He takes office on April 10.

Bhardwaj has an MBA from The International Management Institute in Brussels and a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Cincinnati.

The OCC announced it would create a fintech office last October. Acting comptroller Michael Hsu spoke that month about the regulatory problems posed by partnerships between banks and third-party fintechs. He also called crypto “an immature industry based on an immature technology”.

Basel: The Financial Stability Board announced two new standing committee chairs in a March 29 statement. Nellie Liang, US undersecretary of the Treasury for domestic finance, takes over the committee on financial system vulnerabilities. Ryozo Himino, Bank of Japan deputy governor, becomes chair of the standards implementations committee.

President Donald Trump nominated Liang as a member of the Federal Reserve Board in 2018, but she withdrew her name from consideration in January 2019.

Himino became deputy governor in March, alongside new governor Kazuo Ueda and deputy Uchida.