The Contribution of Payment Systems to Financial Stability

Foreword

The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) of the G10 central bank governors held its meeting in May 2000 in Mexico City. Since the Committee wanted to use this opportunity to establish and renew contacts with central banks in Latin America and the Caribbean, it organised a workshop before its meeting. It was only the second meeting of the Committee outside Basel, following the May 1999 meeting in Hong Kong SAR. At that time a workshop took place with the central banks from Asia and the Pacific.¹

The aim of the workshop was to enhance the exchange of information and cooperation on all issues relating to payment and settlement systems between, on the one hand, the central banks of Latin America and the Caribbean and, on the other hand, between them and the central banks and monetary authorities represented in the Committee. The workshop, which was widely attended, brought 29 institutions together: members of the Committee²plus senior representatives from Aruba, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The workshop covered three broad areas: international standards for payment systems and securities settlement systems, retail payment systems and large-value payments. The presentations made by both G10 and non-G10 central banks clearly underlined the common interest and shared expertise in the area of payment and settlement systems between all participating central banks and the usefulness of continuing central bank cooperation, in particular with respect to ongoing payment systems reform.³

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Chairman
Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems
Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank

¹The proceedings of this workshop were published in December 1999 under the title "Current Topics in Payment and Settlement Systems" and are available on the BIS website (www.bis.org).

²The G10 central banks (Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States) plus the monetary authorities from Hong Kong and Singapore as well as the European Central Bank are represented in the CPSS.

³ The proceedings are reproduced as presented at the workshop and have undergone only light editing. The views expressed in them are those of their authors and not necessarily the views of the BIS or the central banks represented.