Hosted by the Monetary Authority of Macao (“AMCM”) and co-organized jointly by the Financial Stability Institute (“FSI”) and the South East Asia New Zealand Australia (“SEANZA”) group of central banks, the regional seminar on “Stress Testing Practices and Techniques” was held on 25th -27th May in Macao. This was the second time that FSI and SEANZA held a regional seminar in Macao since the one entitled “Corporation Governance for Banks” held in 2008. FSI was founded in 1999 by the Bank for International Settlements and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to assist global financial supervisory authorities to reinforce their supervision on financial system through training, publication and exchange of information. SEANZA is an organization of financial supervisory authorities organized by central banks of South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand in 1956. AMCM became a member in 1998. Besides delegates from AMCM, the seminar was attended by delegates from central banks and supervisory authorities of the Mainland of China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Topics covered in the seminar included the latest development of international standards of stress testing, experience acquired from stress testing carried out in the EU, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Australia and the Asia/Pacific region as well as related capital requirements and provisioning measures. Guest speakers were experts from FSI, European Central Bank, Banca d’ Italia, Banco de España, Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, Australia Prudential Regulatory Authority, HSBC and Standard & Poor’s . In its welcome remark, AMCM introduced briefly the economic and financial development of Macao after the international financial tsunami and pointed out that stress testing has become an essential measure in bank risk management and supervision. The results of stress testing over a long period of time have fully indicated the continued sturdiness of the Macao banking system.
