Sixty years ago, anyone wanting to start a bank was forced to get permission to do so from His Majesty the King. This was a system that was probably considered reasonable and well-balanced bearing in mind the environment in which the banks then operated. Today it is natural that Finansinspektionen should give Swedish banks licence to conduct their operations, but the number of new banking regulations has also increased over the past 35 years. The banks’ change in significance for society, internationalisation and the complexity of both financial markets and financial instruments have all meant that the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament), the Government and Finansinspektionen need to both adapt existing regulations and develop new ones. It is a major challenge for society and a complex balance to ensure that regulation of the banks safeguards financial stability at the same time as contributing to efficient markets, good competition and good consumer protection. But as I mentioned earlier, it is not only values that change over time, but we also gain new experiences and draw conclusions from these. One event that forms a base for modern banking regulation took place in the 1970s. This is when the system with fixed exchange rates was abandoned, the Bretton Woods system that had been agreed on decades earlier by the world's leading economies. In the wake of this, a number of internationally-active banks became insolvent due to losses linked to transactions in foreign currencies.

3.0  Institutional arrangement for debt management in Sierra Leone  Public debt management in Sierra Leone is governed mainly by the 1991 Constitution and the Loan Amendments Act of 1992 which vest the responsibility for contracting loans in the Ministry of Finance (MoF). However, the Ministry and Bank of Sierra Leone (BoSL) work closely in the execution of the debt management function, namely, loan negotiations, renegotiations, disbursement, amortizations and recording. While the MoF undertakes the policy function in terms of formulation of debt policies, strategies and implementation consistent with the macroeconomic and fiscal framework of the country, the BoSL maintains the database, prepares  2  BIS Review 79/2006  the foreign exchange cash flow budget, including debt service obligations. This framework has contributed significantly to improving debt management in the country. We will strive to improve on it. Indeed, the framework enhances coordination of the debt management function by the appropriate authorities. Ladies and Gentlemen, Like most developing countries, Sierra Leone has been facing a number of problems, particularly those relating to maintenance of quality debt data. These include inadequate resourcing of statistics generating units; low priority attached to data collection; and inefficient institutional arrangements for data collection, processing and dissemination. Others include gaps in data recording; and gaps in debt recording systems. I am glad to inform you that the present administration has moved consistently and decisively to up-scale general economic and financial data quality by strengthening data information flows both in BoSL and MoF and at the Central Office of Statistics.