The International Monetary Fund is preparing to embark on a major overhaul of the way it conducts financial surveillance, after a report by the fund’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) highlighted considerable room for improvement.

The area is clearly a critical part of the IMF’s work, and gained in prominence in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But the fund still struggles to ensure the quality of its financial work is on a par with its macroeconomics, and to make matters worse, its