Is there an optimal way to structure supervision?

This article is based on a speech held in Dubai at the Islamic Financial Services Board. The focus of the presentation is on countries where banking still is the dominant part of the financial sector but where other services such as insurance and securities trading are expanding. That said, also countries with more diversified and integrated financial sectors have strong reasons to ensure that the structure of their supervision is updated to follow sector developments, not least the new and more sophisticated approaches to regulation and supervision. There are also countries with a substantive but not necessarily advanced banking sector which, for commercial or political reasons intend to implement sophisticated supervisory and regulatory frameworks such as the Basel II capital requirements. To succeed in this endeavour, the demands on the supervisory system will be high. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]