Preface
Financial stability is a situation where the financial services sector can channel the savings of the population and provide a national payment service in an efficient, secure and sustainable way over time. Within the framework of the implementation of consistent and stable macroeconomic policies, the degree of resilience of the financial sector to negative shocks defines the proximity of the system to financial stability.
The strong interrelationship between financial stability and sustained economic growth justifies that the former constitutes a social good that the State must seek and protect. Historically, many Central Banks were founded to deal with situations of financial instability, while today, most have among their main functions to promote financial stability.
The Central Bank of the Argentine Republic, as established in its Organic Charter in Article 4, has the mandate to “monitor the proper functioning of the financial market”. To achieve the success of this essential function, it is necessary to complement the BCRA’s usual regulatory and supervisory powers with a transparent communication strategy that is accessible to the general public.
With the above objective in mind, the Financial Stability Bulletin (BEF) has emerged, presenting a general assessment of the evolution of financial stability conditions. In the BEF, the various channels of information of the BCRA on the subject are merged into a single publication. Likewise, between each semi-annual edition of the BEF, the BCRA publishes the Banking Report monthly to keep the public updated on the latest developments in the financial system. These two publications are the main means used by the BCRA to disseminate its perspective on the financial sector.
Depending on the depth desired by the reader, BEF can be approached in two ways. The reading of the Institutional Vision and the Risk Balance, together with the synthesis of each chapter, allows us to capture the essence of the BEF. Naturally, the complete review of the BEF offers an in-depth evaluation of the topics discussed, enriched by the development of special topics presented in the Sections.
The date of the next publication of the BEF, with statistical closure at the end of 2005, will be March 30, 2006 via the Internet.
