The board of directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has appointed Luis Bengoechea as head of the banking department.

The BIS banking department, with offices in Basel, Hong Kong SAR and Mexico City, provides banking services globally to central banks and other official sector customers to support their reserve management needs.

Bengoechea, currently deputy head of the BIS banking department and head of treasury, becomes head of the banking department and a member of the executive committee of BIS on 1 June 2024, for a five-year term.

In his current role, he has been working closely with the current department head, Peter Zoellner, in leading the implementation of the bank's Innovation BIS 2025 strategy in the banking area, as the BIS strives to enhance its banking services. In his new role, he will lead the department in completing the strategy.

Zoellner has been head of the banking department since 2013 and will retire at the end of May this year. The BIS board of directors and the general manager recognise his contributions to the bank and the central banking community over the years.

Bengoechea joined the BIS from the private sector in 1998 and has held leadership roles in the banking department, including head of the interest rates group. He has a degree in law and business administration from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, Madrid, and attended the Columbia Business School Senior Executive Programme. He has been deputy head of the banking department in addition to head of treasury since July 2022.

Separately, the board agreed that upon the retirement of the current head of the Monetary and Economic Department (MED), Claudio Borio, at the end of 2024, the current economic adviser and head of research, Hyun Song Shin, will assume the joint role of economic adviser and head of MED. This will return the management structure of MED to its previous arrangement in which the economic adviser is also the head of department.

The board acknowledged that MED had clearly strengthened its performance across its entire policy and research portfolio under the joint leadership of Borio and Shin. They further expressed their confidence that this high standard could be continued under Shin's leadership. Finally, the board also recognised Borio's excellent work and outstanding contributions to economic and financial research and central bank cooperation during his long career at the BIS.

Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker