##ance has held thirty meetings of the network. for smooth functioning of this network, dedicated saarcfinance country cell has been established in member central banks, where the work is supervised by a saarcfinance coordinator with support from an alternate coordinator. for effective coordination with ministries of finance of the region, one saarcfinance focal point has also been appointed from each country. further, the network has a rotating secretariat which shifts to the member central bank holding the chair, rotating annually in an alphabetical order. during the 29th group meeting held on 9th october 2014, the saarcfinance chair was shifted to state bank of pakistan. bis central bankers ’ speeches honorable chairman, 6. i will now proceed to a presentation of our activities. in doing so, i will take the liberty to present our progress of the past few years since it has been a while that the saarc chairman has been invited to this forum, to be precise since 2013. 7. as a part of its core objectives of information sharing and sharing of expertise, the network holds regular staff exchange programmes. these programmes provide an excellent opportunity to the officials of the member central banks to learn from each other ’ s experience and expertise. since 2013, the network has facilitated around 35 staff exchange and training programmes. to facilitate information sharing, a number of regular and non - regular publications and other documents, especially on policy issues, are exchanged among the member institutions. similarly, the network arranges seminars, workshops and symposiums on regular basis. for example since 2013 ten seminars and three governors ’ symposiums have been organized. the subjects of these programs cover varied topics. to name a few : monetary policy framework, central banking operational procedures, banking supervision, currency management, internal audit, and human resource management. similarly, the network has initiated a scholarship scheme for capacity building of the officials of saarcfinance members. this is a relatively newer initiative and so far 5 officials have been awarded scholarships for phd and masters programmes. 8. to further facilitate information sharing, every member central bank has created a web folder on their official websites. the network has its own official website, which provides an informed platform to all members for disseminating important information contents. furthermore, a saarcfinance portal has also been created which serves as a powerful tool to retain institutional memory of our network. the portal enables saarcfinance central banks to share experiences and hold online discussions on issues of mutual interest.

for release on delivery 12 : 30 p. m. edt june 27, 2017 an assessment of financial stability in the united states remarks by stanley fischer vice chairman board of governors of the federal reserve system at the imf workshop on financial surveillance and communication : best practices from latin america, the caribbean, and advanced economies washington, d. c. june 27, 2017 in the years since the start of the global financial crisis, an enormous amount of effort has gone into ensuring that we have a robust financial system that promotes responsible risk taking and an efficient allocation of resources. but despite these efforts, financial stability cannot be taken for granted, for financial decisions that benefit the people who make them can create systemic risk and harm society as a whole. further, the phenomenon familiar from macroeconomics - - and for that matter from life - - of decisions that result in short - run happiness and long - run grief is visible also in the area of financial stability. for example, excessive leverage and reliance on short - term funding, which may reward risk takers whose bets pay off, may also increase the risk of fire sales and contagion, creating a fragile financial situation. the disruption in credit intermediation that typically accompanies such episodes can have lasting negative consequences for the real economy and welfare - - some of which we are still seeing today. the federal reserve ’ s financial stability responsibilities therefore strongly complement its dual - mandate objectives of achieving price stability and full employment. today i will review the monitoring framework we have implemented at the federal reserve, before providing an assessment of current u. s. financial stability conditions. i will conclude by arguing that while significant progress has been made in recent years toward making the financial system more stable and resilient, we should not ever be complacent. 1 we still lack sufficient information to understand some parts of the shadow banking system, and risks sometimes evolve outside the scope of prudential regulation, with potentially negative implications for financial stability. and sometimes i am grateful to chiara scotti and filip zikes of the federal reserve board for their assistance. views expressed in this presentation are my own and not necessarily those of the federal reserve board or the federal open market committee. - 2we fail to understand the situation in which we find the financial system and the economy. framework for monitoring financial stability participants in today ’ s workshops have grappled with the question of what is the best framework to monitor financial stability. one approach is to focus on trends