LONDON - As part of an effort to improve its oversight, the Bank of England said on Tuesday that a senior member of the International Monetary Fund would join the central bank later this year in a newly created position to supervise markets and banking.
Nemat Shafik, the I.M.F.’s deputy managing director, will join the Bank of England in August as deputy governor for markets and banking. She will also fill the seat held by Paul Fisher, the executive director for markets, on the central bank’s monetary policy committee, which sets interest rates.
Her appointment comes as the central bank is facing questions about its apparent coziness with the financial industry amid a review into whether bank officials knew of or condoned potential manipulation of the currency markets. A staff member was suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into whether the employee complied with its internal control processes, the Bank of England said earlier this month.
Regulators in Britain, the United States and elsewhere are investigating whether traders at some of the world’s largest banks colluded to manipulate the $5 trillion-a-day foreign exchange markets.
Mark J. Carney, governor of the Bank of England, said last week at a meeting of the Treasury Select Committee that the new deputy governor’s first task would be to review how the central bank conducted market intelligence and to make sure its policies were consistently applied. He has said the central bank must be “beyond reproach.â€
The Bank of England also announced on Tuesday that Anthony J. Habgood would succeed David Lees as chairman of the bank’s court of directors, its supervisory board, and Ben Broadbent would succeed Charles Bean as deputy governor for monetary policy. Mr. Lees and Mr. Bean are leaving the bank’s court of directors at the end of June.
“With a diverse combination of skills and experience, these appointments result in a well-rounded senior management team at the bank - one that will set the direction for an ambitious agenda of transformation for the institution and enable it to meet the challenges and opportunities it faces in maintaining monetary and financial stability,†Mr. Carney said in a statement on Tuesday.
The new position is part of Mr. Carney’s efforts to put his stamp on the central bank after taking over as governor last year.
In her new role, Ms. Shafik, who is widely known as Minouche, will be responsible for reshaping the central bank’s operations and balance sheet to ensure its risk management practices remain robust. She will also help lead the Bank of England’s exit from quantitative easing, in which the central bank has purchased bonds in order to stimulate the economy.
In addition to the monetary policy committee, Ms. Shafik will sit on the financial policy committee, serve on the court of directors and sit on the board of the Prudential Regulation Authority, the bank’s financial regulation arm.
“I look forward to fulfilling this challenging new role on the bank’s senior leadership team, as we reshape the bank’s balance sheet, review and strengthen the bank’s operational roles, and, through continued international engagement, reform financial markets for the post-crisis world,†Ms. Shafik said.
At the I.M.F., Ms. Shafik oversees the fund’s work in Europe and the Middle East and is responsible for the fund’s $1 billion administrative budget. She was previously the permanent secretary of Britain’s Department for International Development, which works to end extreme poverty worldwide, and was the youngest-ever vice president at the World Bank.
Mr. Habgood, who was appointed to a four-year term, will join the bank in July as chairman of its court of directors.
Among his responsibilities, he will lead the bank’s oversight committee, which is currently conducting an internal investigation into whether employees condoned or participated in currency manipulation.
Mr. Habgood is the board chairman of Whitbread, the hotel and restaurant company that owns Costa Coffee; Reed Elsevier, the publishing company that owns LexisNexis; and Preqin Holding, a research firm based in London.
Also joining in July, Mr. Broadbent, a former senior European economist at Goldman Sachs, will be responsible for the central bank’s research and analysis of the British economy. He will lead the monetary policy committee in Mr. Carney’s absence.
Mr. Broadbent was formerly an economic adviser at Britain’s Treasury and an assistant professor of economics at Columbia University. He succeeds Mr. Bean, who is retiring after 14 years at the central bank.
