The international financial system has come under strain several times in recent years, and analysis has shown that most crises originated from the risks built into cross-border exposures. Assessment and monitoring of cross-border exposures and country risk are essential activities for international lending agencies such as government bodies, banks, multinational corporations and other investors. Inadequate risk management could have a destabilising effect on both lender and borrower and could result in a major international financial crisis. This completely revised edition of Thomas E Krayenbuehl's classic handbook clearly shows how the various players can quantify and manage the complex factors involved in order to minimise the risk and avoid potentially catastrophic consequences. It provides both a rigorous analysis of the current situation and a guide to meeting the challenges of the future. Just some of the things you'll discover. How to succeed in cross-border lending and investment through good assessment, monitoring and hedging of country risk How the Tequila and Asian crises came about, and the lessons learned The likelihood of future crises and the potential causes The latest problems to beset the international financial system The recent developments in cross-border financing Why the problem of contagion occurs between seemingly unrelated markets The enormous need for global capital to bring about sustainable economic development in the developing world, and the role of the major players in fulfilling it The numerous factors that constitute and influence a specific country risk The responsibilities of all the parties involved, from the IMF and the World Bank to the industrialised and developing nations, the regulators and the rating agencies How this study helps you: This lucid and authoritative handbook will help you to: Understand the problems facing the international financial system Identify and assess new investment opportunities Optimise risk composition of cross-border lending or investment Make sound decisions, minimise risk and achieve better outcomes The definitive study of this important topic - its purpose, practice and implications

Assessing country risk is a core component of surveillance at the IMF. It is conducted through a comprehensive architecture, covering both bilateral and multilateral dimensions. This note describes some of the approaches used internally by Fund staff to examine a wide array of systemic risks across advanced, emerging, and low-income economies. It provides a high-level view of the theory and methodologies employed, with an on-line companion guide providing more technical details of implementation. The guide will be updated as Fund staff’s methodologies for assessing country risk continue to evolve with experience and feedback. While the results of these approaches are not published by the IMF for market sensitivity reasons, they inform risk assessments featured in bilateral surveillance as well as in the IMF’s flagship publications on global surveillance.

This paper provides a dataset on the currency composition of the international investment position for a group of 50 countries for the period 1990-2017. It improves available data based on estimates by incorporating actual data reported by statistical authorities and refining estimation methods. The paper illustrates current and new uses of these data, with particular focus on the evolution of currency exposures of cross-border positions.

This paper reviews empirical and theoretical work on the links between banks and their governments (the bank-sovereign nexus). How significant is this nexus? What do we know about it? To what extent is it a source of concern? What is the role of policy intervention? The paper concludes with a review of recent policy proposals.

Cross-border banking, while having the potential for a more efficient financial sector, also creates potential challenges for bank supervisors and regulators. This volume discusses topics that include: the landscape of cross-border bank activity, the resulting competitive implications, emerging challenges for prudential regulation, and more. Cross-border banking, while having the potential for a more efficient financial sector, also creates potential challenges for bank supervisors and regulators. It requires cooperation by regulatory authorities across jurisdictions and a clear delineation of authority and responsibility. That delineation is typically not present and regulatory authorities often have significantly different incentives to respond when cross-border-active banks encounter difficulties. Most of these issues have only begun to be seriously evaluated. This volume, one of the first attempts to address these issues, brings together experts and regulators from different countries. The wide range of topics discussed include: the current landscape of cross-border bank activity, the resulting competitive implications, emerging challenges for prudential regulation, safety net concerns, failure resolution issues, and the potential future evolution of international banking.

Effective cross-border financial surveillance requires the monitoring of direct and indirect systemic linkages. This paper illustrates how network analysis could make a significant contribution in this regard by simulating different credit and funding shocks to the banking systems of a number of selected countries. After that, we show that the inclusion of risk transfers could modify the risk profile of entire financial systems, and thus an enriched simulation algorithm able to account for risk transfers is proposed. Finally, we discuss how some of the limitations of our simulations are a reflection of existing information and data gaps, and thus view these shortcomings as a call to improve the collection and analysis of data on cross-border financial exposures.

This paper presents a coordinated portfolio investment survey guide provided to assist national compilers in the conduct of the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey, conducted under the auspices of the IMF with reference to the year-end 1997. The guide covers a variety of conceptual issues that a country must address when conducting a survey. It also covers the practical issues associated with preparing for a national survey. These include setting a timetable, taking account of the legal and confidentiality issues raised, developing a mailing list, and maintaining quality control checks.