Central Banking Publications has named the Bank Financial Strength Dashboard as ‘Initiative of the Year’ in its annual awards.
In announcing the award, Central Banking commented that very few central banks have opened up their financial system to public scrutiny to quite the same level as the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
They said that by revealing key metrics on the banking sector in a visual format that can be taken in at a glance, the Reserve Bank has hit on a simple method of boosting discipline among banks.
Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr said the award was a great honour.
“We aspire to be a ‘Great Team, Best Central Bank’ and the award recognises a significant step towards that goal,” Mr Orr said.
“Awareness among consumers and investors is an important aspect of ensuring a sound financial system. The Dashboard is designed to make it easy to access and understand the financial position of New Zealand banks. By keeping the public informed about risks to the sector, banks themselves are held to greater market discipline.
“The Dashboard has proven very popular, with more than 10,000 visits per quarter since its launch and we believe this has significantly broadened the audience for prudential disclosures.
“It is the result of huge effort and dedication from many people in our organisation and the sector at large. I congratulate them all and encourage people to use the Dashboard when making banking decisions,” Mr Orr said.
Background
Central Banking Publications is a financial publisher owned by Incisive Media and specialising in public policy and financial markets, with emphasis on central banks, international financial institutions and financial market infrastructure and regulation.
Central Banking Publications was founded in 1990, and makes a number of annual awards to central banks and market participants over a range of categories. This is the sixth year of the awards.
The Reserve Bank previously won the ‘Initiative of the year’ award in 2016 for its enterprise risk management system. It has also won ‘Central Bank of the Year’ in 2015 and Reserve Bank senior adviser Leo Krippner won the award for ‘Economics in Central Banking’ in 2017.
Judging was by the Central Banking Awards Committee, which is made up of the Central Banking Editorial Team and Editorial Advisory Board, comprising former senior central bank governors from around the world. The awards will be presented at a gala dinner in London on 13 March.
