gill marcus : monetary policy and financial stability in the post - crisis era welcoming remarks by ms gill marcus, governor of the south african reserve bank, at the biennial conference of the south african reserve bank, pretoria, 4 november 2010. * * * introduction it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the third biennial policy conference of the south african reserve bank. the aim of this conference series is to stimulate debate on current topical issues and to add value to these discussions. in order to ensure this, we have invited economists from the policy arena, the private sector and academia. having a wide crosssection of economists with different perspectives in our midst should enrich a lively debate. we are particularly fortunate to have a number of well - respected local and international economists present, and we are grateful for the opportunity to interact with them. allow me to also welcome participants from some of our neighbouring countries, including governor shiimi of namibia, governor senaoana of lesotho, and deputy governor mdluli from the central bank of swaziland accompanied by senior officials from their central banks. the previous conference, held in late october 2008, took place a few weeks after the outbreak of the global economic crisis. at the time, the full implications were unclear. two years later, the world has emerged from the recession, but is not out of the crisis, and the global outlook remains uncertain. some advanced countries are still struggling to stimulate their economies : quantitative easing continues in the united states and japan, and monetary policy remains accommodative in the united kingdom, and in the euro area. the banking sectors in europe and the us remain under pressure. against the backdrop of fiscal austerity measures, monetary policy is likely to remain loose for longer, which has implications for emerging - market economies in particular, where significant capital inflows have put pressure on their currencies. unfortunately, the global imbalances that were at the heart of the crisis in the first place are still with us, with few prospects for an imminent resolution of the problems. nevertheless, it is an opportune time to assess some of the implications of the crisis. many questions are being asked : for instance, is there a changed role of central banks regarding monetary policy, financial stability and regulation? this year the theme of the conference is : “ monetary policy and financial stability in the post - crisis era ”. within this broad theme we will be focusing on three important areas, namely the implications for banking sector regulation, for

in the bank since then. the question that confronted us was : how, when, by who and what should be done to change the status quo. it was clear that a strategic plan and modalities had to be developed to answer this question. and so the journey began. firstly, we developed a strategy driven by the executive level of the bank. an important element of that strategy was to talk through the issues with all management and staff about the imperative of transformation as an optimal human resources allocation issue and also as a contribution to the deracialisation of south africa. this was not an easy task and still is not an easy one. numerous strategy planning meetings to achieve a buy - in were and still are the order of the day. change is continuous though. we are always in a state of change. so the end - state is nothing but a brief moment to reflect. as some philosophers have said “ nothing is stable except stability ” i say “ joined ” because i do not want to claim that transformation only began in 1998. far from it. the fact that by that time there were some black mangers and females in the senior professional and assistant general management level is testimony to the fact that my predecessors had begun the journey. we accelerated the pace. secondly, management was tasked with the responsibility to indicate to the executive team 3 how and by when they could go about implementing a numerical target of 50 - 50 black / white ratio and a 33 % female representation at all occupational levels of the bank by 2005. this was the basic plan. the process was both fascinating and difficult. eventually we produced the plan. thirdly, it was an essential element that transformation was more than about employment equity numbers. it also involved changing the culture and the decision making processes in the bank. to that extent we sat down to create a committee or syndicate decisionmaking system. this forced people to engage in regular discussions and debates about the work of the bank around the same table or tables. examples in this regard are the monetary policy committee ( mpc ), the management committee ( manco ), financial stability committee, etc. these committees or syndicates brought together people from different departments to make collective decisions in order to advance the work of the bank. fourthly, the board of directors had to change too. in 1998, the board of directors was extremely unrepresentative with only four ( 4 ) black people out of a total of fourteen ( 14 ). the secretary of the board was also