ardian fullani : a short overview on the latest albanian banking system achievements speech by mr ardian fullani, governor of the bank of albania, at the ebrd 2005 annual meeting and business forum, belgrade, 22 may 2005. * * * ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to participate in this prestigious event of the ebrd annual meeting and business forum. for this purpose, i would like to thank the organisers of this meeting who provided us such an opportunity to present our achievements and ambitions for the future. allow me first to tackle an important issue, which within the context of this meeting, i believe, is of paramount importance. i mean by that the regional co - operation, an initiative that has been completely supported by the european central bank. we have already taken the first steps in this regard through establishing bilateral relationships in banking supervision with national bank of macedonia, central bank of montenegro and banking and payment authority of kosovo. meanwhile, we are in the process of negotiating with national bank of bosnia and herzegovina, national bank of serbia etc... i estimate that regional co - operation is an important forerunner of the integration process of the region with the rest of europe ; therefore i will not stop working to encourage a regional co - operation of high standards among the financial systems of balkan countries. i hope that you share the same opinion with me, because only in this way, our region will be more credible and efficient to have its european dream. on the other hand, a developed and financially integrated region will be more attractive for foreign strategic investors, opening up the path toward regional development projects, particularly infrastructure ones where region ’ s banks might be directed in financing and investment. further on i would like to give to you a short overview on the latest albanian banking system achievements. after many years of difficult transition, in this late spring of 2005 the banking system is growing on a stable basis. dear participants, i would like to ensure you that recently there are many qualitative developments of the albanian banking system. i use the opportunity of this event to express that positive assessments on the banking system have been given also in the report prepared by the world bank and international monetary fund after the completion of their assessment made on the albanian financial system ( fsap - financial system assessment program ). of course, this is good news. conclusions of fsap, of this important international passport, are an indication of our earliest conclusions that the albanian financial system is characterized by a supervised and

vitor constancio : the future of the international monetary system speech by mr vitor constancio, vice - president of the european central bank, for the golden series lecture at the official monetary and financial institutions forum ( omfif ), london, 23 november 2011. * * * ladies and gentlemen, it is with pleasure that i have accepted the invitation from the omfif golden series on world money to talk about the future of the international monetary system. this subject has become very topical this year, not least in view of the discussions and progress achieved at the very recent cannes summit. i will start by briefly recalling the key features of a good international monetary system and on this basis, i will try to define what are, in my view, the main weaknesses of the present system ( or “ non - system ” as many describe it ). this will allow me to dwell upon the possible evolution over the medium run of some of the main components of the international monetary system. when concluding, i will assess whether such an evolution may prove to be an adequate response to the challenges we are confronted with. what can we expect from a good - quality international monetary system? the ultimate goal of the international monetary system ( hereafter : ims ) is to maintain an orderly system of payments among nations. to this aim, the ims has to provide the services of an international currency, ensure adequate creation of global liquidity, define an exchange rate regime among national currencies and include an adjustment mechanism to avoid excessive external real and financial imbalances across nations. both global liquidity and the adjustment mechanism can be interpreted as global public goods ( see e. g. eichengreen 1987, camdessus 1999, dorrucci and mckay 2011 ). it is indeed only through access to global liquidity that it becomes possible to participate in, and finance, the global economy by using one or more reserve currencies as a means of payment, a unit of account or a store of value. and it is only through an efficient and effective adjustment mechanism that it becomes possible to benefit from “ external stability ”, namely a global sustainable constellation of cross - country economic linkages ( e. g. via current accounts and asset / liability positions ). once external stability is achieved, cross - country linkages do not give rise to disruptive developments, such as disorderly exchange rate and asset price swings or contractions in real output and employment. external stability crucially depends on