Coen appointed new Basel Committee secretary-general

William Coen will take over as secretary-general of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision from June, when Wayne Byres leaves to head Australia's prudential regulator.

Coen is currently the deputy secretary-general, a post he has held for seven years, and has spent a total of 15 years at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Before joining the BIS in 1999, Coen spent six years as an analyst for the Federal Reserve board of governors. He has almost 30 years of banking and regulatory experience.

"Bill has been integral to the development of the Basel Committee's post-crisis regulatory reform agenda," committee chair Stefan Ingves said. "Without his effort and support, the finalisation of these important projects would have been far more challenging."

Coen will serve an "initial" term of three years as secretary-general, where he will be responsible for supporting Ingves in developing and setting the committee's strategy, and assisting with its various subgroups and task forces.

The post of secretary-general is on the CV of some of the world's top banking supervisors. Danièle Nouy held the post between 1998 and 2003, and now serves as chair of the supervisory board of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM).

Stefan Walter, secretary-general between 2006 and 2011, is also joining the SSM, where he will lead one of the directorates-general responsible for the direct supervision of ‘significant' banks.

Coen will assume the role in mid-June, when Byres leaves the committee to chair the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (Apra). He had previously served as Apra's executive general manager.