The Financial Sector Advisory Center (FinSAC), based in Vienna, provides independent, confidential, and tailored expertise, technical advice, and implementation support to client countries in the Emerging Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region.
FinSAC offers global knowledge to help develop and disseminate good practices that can enrich regional policy debates and cross-fertilize reforms. It promotes the application of international benchmarks and standards with the support of global and regional organizations.
FinSAC organizes its specialist technical assistance within the following three distinct thematic pillars, which cover macro and microprudential themes and issues related to bank failure.
FinSAC's three thematic pillars:
1. Financial Stability, Crisis Preparedness, and Macroprudential Frameworks;
2. Strengthening Microprudential Supervision and Regulation including Non-Performing Loan Resolution;
3. Addressing Bank Recovery and Resolution including Bank Liquidation.
In addition to dedicated work streams within each of the pillars, FinSAC’s range of expertise is usefully combined to offer client countries integrated advice and technical assistance across the pillars.
FinSAC engages in technical work that helps countries implement concrete legislative, regulatory, and institution-building initiatives that strengthen the resilience and efficiency of financial systems.
FinSAC provides advisory and analytical services through three distinct channels:
FinSAC’s geographical focus is expanding according to three key priority groups:
FinSAC was established in June 2011 as a follow-up mechanism of the Vienna Initiative, through joint collaboration of the Austrian Ministry of Finance and the World Bank’s Private and Financial Sector Department. FinSAC is financed by the Austrian Government through a Trust Fund Agreement.
For more information, please contact Vahe Vardanyan vvardanyan@worldbank.org.
Financial Sector’s Cybersecurity: A Regulatory Digest
The Digest is a periodically updated compilation of recent laws, regulations, guidelines, and other significant documents such as communication of initiatives or research and analysis on cybersecurity for the financial sector. The growing collection of resources aims to assist financial sector authorities primarily, but also the industry, cybersecurity professionals, and others interested in financial system stability, to navigate the cross section of cybersecurity and the financial sector.
Cyber risk is not a problem for IT specialists only; it is everybody's problem in any organization. Several documents in the Digest can help a much wider audience understand what cyber risk is, why it matters for financial stability and everyone's role in adequately managing it. The updates include new publications since the previous edition and older ones that FinSAC frequently finds with help from readers, who are strongly encouraged to keep letting us know anything they feel is missing.
This resource is continuously evolving to improve its utility for financial sector authorities. Currently at its 6th edition, the Digest consists of two parts: 1) the Digest document (PDF download) with the explanatory summaries of all the items in the Digest, beginning with a section reflecting on the edition’s new documents; and 2) the “Source Table” (Excel download) with all items in an easy to view list, filterable by some characteristics. With the Digest now being of over 300 documents, readers are strongly encouraged to review the Source Table after reading the Introduction and What’s New sections.
6th Edition (pub. Aug. 2021): Digest | Source Table
5th Edition (pub. Jul. 2020): Digest | Source Table
4th Edition (pub. Nov. 2019): Digest | Source Table
3rd Edition (pub. May. 2019): Digest | Source Table
2nd Edition (pub. Oct. 2018): Digest | Source Table
1st Edition (pub. Dec. 2017): Digest | Source Table
For any inquiries, please contact Yejin Carol Lee (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, EFNFS, ylee5@worldbank.org).
Last Updated: Sep 15, 2021