The Superintendency of Banks of Panama (SBP) serves as the main counterpart, along with the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), the Superintendency of the Securities Market (SMV), the Superintendency of Insurance and Reinsurance (SSRP), and other stakeholders in the banking and financial sector, in the Financial System Assessment Process (FSAP) of Panama.
During this process, conducted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) since last year, various aspects are assessed, including the 29 Basel Principles, macroprudential policies, the bank security network, stress testing, the implementation of green finance, the payment system, digitization, technological innovation tools, and anti-money laundering (AML) measures.
The primary objective of the FSAP is to evaluate the stability of the financial system through several actions. These actions involve identifying the system’s strengths, risks, and vulnerabilities, along with providing advice on policies to bolster the sector’s resilience and offering recommendations to enhance the supervision of the financial system, including macroprudential policies and framework.
The first phase of this process has entailed numerous activities, such as consolidating hundreds of statistics and risk indicators and responding to a substantial number of questionnaires. Simultaneously, more than 100 working meetings have been conducted to supplement the assessment process.
The application of the FSAP is expected to take approximately fifteen months (one year and three months). Once completed, the analysis results will be published on the IMF and SBP’s websites.
The recommendations issued by the organization will serve as a guide for improving various areas, for which the IMF will provide technical assistance.
The FSAP is a periodic assessment of the financial sector conducted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in member countries.
