Africa
Working group minutes: strategic planning structures
Central banks are adapting their strategic planning functions and adopting digital tools
Bank of Ghana slashes rates by 250bp
Institution says fiscal consolidation and plummeting inflation justified additional easing
People: President’s nephew confirmed as BI deputy governor
Plus new governor in Malawi and Croatia’s vice-governor to become minister
Vast majority of central banks taking action on climate risk
Nearly one in five banks reflect climate risk in reserves management and collateral eligibility
Risk management reviews are most common assessment method
Centralised teams are less likely to conduct external or management evaluations
UK’s Orange Book risk approach rarely used by central banks
Only three centralised risk management departments utilise principle
Staff error is largest cause of op risk at central banks
Legacy systems tend to trigger most threats in jurisdictions with greater than average number of incidents
Op risk incidents average over 100 a year among central banks
Financial impact is risk managers’ strongest metric for gauging incidents’ severity
Phishing and ransomware are central banks’ main cyber threats
Teams widely use training, monitoring and privilege management to mitigate cyber threats
Just under half of risk departments are sufficiently staffed
Units with satisfied staffing levels earn below global average annual salary
Mitigation and reporting are leading components of risk strategy
Decentralised teams more likely to embed philosophy in divisional decision-making
Most centralised risk teams prioritise cyber security
Decentralised teams primarily cover credit and counterparty, op and market risks
Risk policies widely reviewed by committee in larger teams
Central banks with larger teams favour risk committees over CROs
Algeria sacks central bank governor
Taleb replaced by erstwhile deputy on an interim basis, country’s president announces
Nigeria revokes mortgage lenders’ licences
Central bank says closure of Aso and Union Homes due to poor compliance culture
South Africa’s inflation target cut a ‘major’ feat, says IMF
Move likely to reduce borrowing costs and improve debt sustainability, institution says
Nigeria to discourage cash withdrawals and make deposits easier
Central bank says reform package aims to reduce cash usage and tackle money laundering
Central banks’ social media share ticks up
Social-traditional media split for communications roughly the same across different regions
Local languages widely used in central bank communications
African central banks use more English in communications than counterparts in other regions
Comms teams see dis/misinformation on social media as key risk
Criticism from government ranks as smallest risk
Website upgrades are comms teams’ top priorities for next year
Commitments differ somewhat by departmental structure