International financial watchdog’s new leader is a crypto expert

The Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international watchdog that keeps tabs on global financial operations, has just added a cryptocurrency expert to its team. Tapped to head the organization’s Standing Committee on Supervisory and Regulatory Cooperation is Ryozo Himino, a high-ranking executive from Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA). The appointment could prove to be very lucrative for the future of global adoption of digital currencies.

The FSB, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland and hosted by the Bank for International Settlements, announced the move in a press release on Monday, explaining, “The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has appointed Ryozo Himino, Vice Minister for International Affairs at the Japanese Financial Services Agency, as Chair of the FSB’s Standing Committee on Supervisory and Regulatory Cooperation (SRC), for a two-year term starting on 1 September 2019.”

Himino has served as the Vice Minister for International Affairs at the FSA since 2016. He has been responsible for supervising banks, broker dealers, audit firms, regulated capital markets and insurance companies for over two decades, and has also served as the Secretary General of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision for three years, from 2003 to 2006.

The press release describes the FSB’s activities, explaining, “The FSB coordinates at the international level the work of national financial authorities and international standard-setting bodies and develops and promotes the implementation of effective regulatory, supervisory, and other financial sector policies in the interest of financial stability. It brings together national authorities responsible for financial stability in 24 countries and jurisdictions, international financial institutions, sector-specific international groupings of regulators and supervisors, and committees of central bank experts. The FSB also conducts outreach with approximately 70 other jurisdictions through its six Regional Consultative Groups.”

Japan and its FSA have been quick to react to growing interest in cryptocurrencies. The country has been at the forefront of a movement to introduce global regulations for the space and, as part of the FSA, Himino has been personally involved in developing the country’s approach to crypto exchange regulations. He has also been a major force in Japan’s drive to have the G20 adopt policies, a move that has apparently had success given the introduction of new guidelines by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). In a recent G20 meeting, the general consensus was that the countries involved would be adopting those guidelines.