International Monetary Conference

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 International Monetary Conference link(meeting)

Date	1954 - Present
Description	An annual secretive conference of the CEOs of the largest banks around the world
Participants	Baudouin Prot, Frank Keating,Gordon Nixon,William Downe,Francisco Gonzalez,Robert E. Setuba,Richard Waugh,Chanda Kochhar,Jacko Maree,Andreas Triech,Walter B. Kielholz,Federico Ghizzoni?,Douglas Flint?,Ibrahim S. Dabdoub?

The International Monetary Conference (IMC) is an annual secretive conference of the CEOs of the largest banks around the world.

Overview

In 2014 Andrew Gavin Marshall wrote how he discovered the conference. "I was first made aware of the International Monetary Conference through references listed on some of the CVs of the world’s major bankers...Having compiled the resumes of over 300 bankers and counting, I managed to collect a partial list of bankers who are also members of the board of directors at the IMC. I have attempted to contact multiple sources for comment on the conference, but received zero answer. Instead, I turned to the archives of The New York Times and other newspapers, as well as copies of speeches by public officials at the conference over the years. The research has enabled me to paint a rough portrait of this secretive, highly influential global conference, both historically and in its present form."

A. W. Clausen

A. W. Clausen was a major figure in international banking and finance in the 20^th century. He spent a long career at Bank of America, becoming President and CEO in 1970, a position he held until 1981 when he became President of the World Bank. In 2009 Clausen wrote briefly about the origins and evolution of the IMC:

Indeed, the interdependency of international finance had become apparent to American business and financial leaders in the early 1950s. To provide a forum for discussion of major economic, monetary, and fiscal issues affecting the international banking community, the American Bankers Association hosted the first International Monetary Conference in 1954. Initially, the conference brought together chief executive officers of the 50 largest United States banks and 12 to 15 bankers of equal rank from abroad as well as central bank and government officials. The number of foreign bankers in attendance increased each year, and in 1970, the by-laws were changed to make the International Monetary Conference (IMC) a truly international body. The membership has broadened considerably in the last decade. It currently comprises 116 banks from 23 countries [as of 2009].

Priority over other meetings

In 2001, Wim Duisenberg commented when criticized by European media for not attending a recent Eurogroup meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from euro-currency countries in Brussels: {{#subobject: |Has superobject=International Monetary Conference |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Wim Duisenberg|+sep=, |Has text=“I would like to point out that it has been a tradition since 1954 that the highlight of the annual International Monetary Conference, which is held in a different place every year, is the so-called Central Bankers' Panel in which the central banks, or central bankers, of the three main currencies in the world participate. And I did so. It would have drawn more attention had I not been there, than had I been in Brussels... I can tell you that the next meeting of the International Monetary Conference will be ... in Montreal [in 2002], and the year after it will be ... in Berlin. On both occasions you can be sure, if it happens to coincide with the meeting of the Eurogroup, that the ECB will be represented in the Eurogroup by the Vice-President.” |Is about=International Monetary Conference,International Monetary Conferences, Eurogroup|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate=2001 |Sourced from= |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName= |Has sourceURL=http://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pressconf/2001/html/is010607.en.html

}}

“I would like to point out that it has been a tradition since 1954 that the highlight of the annual International Monetary Conference, which is held in a different place every year, is the so-called Central Bankers' Panel in which the central banks, or central bankers, of the three main currencies in the world participate. And I did so. It would have drawn more attention had I not been there, than had I been in Brussels... I can tell you that the next meeting of the International Monetary Conference will be ... in Montreal [in 2002], and the year after it will be ... in Berlin. On both occasions you can be sure, if it happens to coincide with the meeting of the Eurogroup, that the ECB will be represented in the Eurogroup by the Vice-President.”
Wim Duisenberg (2001) 

People

Andrew Gavin Marshall managed to gather the names of some of the board members as of 2014. The president and chairman of the International Monetary Conference was Baudouin Prot. Formerly CEO of BNP Paribas. The executive vice president of the IMC is Frank Keating, President and CEO of the American Bankers Association. Confirmed board members of the International Monetary Conference include: Gordon Nixon, President and CEO of Royal Bank of Canada; William Downe, CEO of BMO Financial Group; Axel Weber, Chairman of UBS; Francisco Gonzalez, Chairman and CEO of BBVA; Robert E. Setubal, President and CEO of Itau Unibanco Banco SA; Richard Waugh, President and CEO of Scotiabank; Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank; Jacko Maree, senior banker at Standard Chartered; Andreas Treichl, Chairman and CEO of Erste Group Bank; and Walter B. Kielholz, the Chairman of Swiss Re. The three bankers who were listed as “members” – and possible, though unconfirmed, board members – are Federico Ghizzoni, the CEO of UniCredit; Douglas Flint, the Chairman of HSBC (also chairman of the Institute of International Finance), and Ibrahim S. Dabdoub, the CEO of the National Bank of Kuwait.

Meetings

The first International Monetary Conference was held from May 23–25, 1954 in New York City. It was hosted by the American Bankers Association (ABA).

At the 1974 meeting of the IMC, David Rockefeller, the chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, and Wilfired Guth, the managing director of Deutsche Bank, both “expressed deep reservations... about how long the international banking network could carry the burden of recycling the vast flows of money resulting from the huge jump in oil prices”..

• June 1982 in British Columbia, Canada

• At the 1992 International Monetary Conference in Toronto, Canada there was a general consensus among private bankers and public officials that, as a result of enormous over-lending to Latin America and developing countries throughout the previous debt-crisis decade, the task of financing “the transformation of the former Soviet Union to a market economy” could not be left to bank loans alone.

In 2023, the IMC was held on the sides of the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai and was chaired by John C. Dugan, chairman of Citigroup.

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References