Caruana to replace McDonough as Basel Committee chief

Jaime Caruana, governor of the Bank of Spain, will replace William McDonough, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

Caruana will replace McDonough, who is retiring from the New York Fed on July 21, on July 1. Nick Le Pan, financial institutions superintendent at Canada's Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, will take up the new role of vice-chairman of the Basel Committee.

The changes to the Committee’s hierarchy were agreed at a G10 central bank governors and heads of banking supervision meeting in Basel on March 9.

Participants at the meeting thanked McDonough for his leadership in advancing the work of the committee. They also reaffirmed their support for Basel II – the new capital Accord that will more closely align regulatory capital with the risks of conducting banking. They believe its implementation by the end of 2006 was achievable.

The governors and regulators also thanked Claes Norgren for his efforts as chairman of the Committee’s capital task force, while he was chairman of the Financial Services Authority of Sweden.