{
  "title": "Agustín Carstens: The Innovative Central Banker",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/people-in-economics-the-innovative-central-banker-andreas-adriano",
  "canonical": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/people-in-economics-the-innovative-central-banker-andreas-adriano",
  "overlayPath": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/people-in-economics-the-innovative-central-banker-andreas-adriano/index.md",
  "summary": "Andreas Adriano profiles Agustín Carstens, finance minister, head of the BIS, and central banker with a start-up mentality",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Career trajectory and leadership roles",
      "content": "- Over a four-decade career at the IMF, Mexico’s central bank and finance ministry, and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).\n- Key positions:\n  - IMF: board member for Mexico, Spain, and Central America (1999); deputy managing director (date not specified in text).\n  - Mexico: deputy finance minister (2001); finance minister (late 2006); governor of Mexico’s central bank (2010).\n  - BIS: general manager (first from an emerging market; assumed role in 2017), finishing term at end of June (year implied in context).\n- Age and personal background:\n  - Will be 67 years old at the end of his BIS term.\n  - Born in Mexico City; of German ancestry; educated at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and the University of Chicago (master’s and doctoral degrees completed in three years beginning in 1982).\n- Early practical experience:\n  - Witnessed Mexico’s multiple peso devaluations and nationalization in 1982.\n  - Worked as a foreign exchange trader and treasurer; updated exchange rates, trading volumes, and reserve levels every half hour during crises."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Crisis management and institutional innovation",
      "content": "- Crisis responses and policy innovations:\n  - Participated in managing the 1994 Tequila Crisis, which required a $50 billion bailout organized by the US.\n  - As deputy finance minister and later finance minister, pushed reforms to strengthen banking, pensions, and energy sectors.\n  - Advocated precautionary, no-strings IMF lending as deputy managing director; helped bring the Flexible Credit Line (FCL) into being in March 2009.\n  - Mexico signed the first FCL worth $47 billion in 2009.\n- Political and managerial skills:\n  - Won approval of four federal budgets in a minority government as finance minister.\n  - Described as combining intellectual rigor, pragmatism, and political ability; characterized by a “start-up mentality.”"
    },
    {
      "heading": "BIS tenure and the Innovation Hub",
      "content": "- Innovation Hub creation and objectives:\n  - Launched under Carstens’ leadership to foster a start-up culture within the BIS and to facilitate collaboration among central banks on technology.\n  - Appointed Benoît Cœuré to lead the Innovation Hub.\n- Hub scale and outputs:\n  - Reached more than 100 employees and seven centers around the world in five years.\n  - Conducted about 40 projects testing new technologies, from tokenization to using AI to improve economic analysis.\n- Notable projects and timelines:\n  - Project Nexus: created a prototype platform to interconnect domestic retail payment systems; governments of India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand are developing it for commercial use by 2027; will allow 500 million people across the five countries to send money back and forth as easily as Americans use Venmo or Brazilians use Pix.\n  - Project Agorá: tests tokenization within the existing financial system; over 40 financial institutions and leading central banks (including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Bank of England, Bank of Japan) joined.\n- Cultural and institutional impact:\n  - The Hub mixes macroeconomists with software engineers, blockchain experts, and data scientists.\n  - Described as “a transformational project in the central bank universe” that “will need time to deliver benefits and change culture.”"
    },
    {
      "heading": "Views on technology, monetary policy, and geopolitics",
      "content": "- Evolving stance on technology:\n  - Initially skeptical: in 2018 called Bitcoin “a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme, and an environmental disaster.”\n  - Shifted after 2019 Asia trip, impressed by Singapore’s and Hong Kong SAR’s retail payments, tokenization, and open finance ecosystems.\n- Monetary policy analysis and recommendations:\n  - Argued that central banks initially focused too much on the risk of inflation being too low following recent geoeconomic shocks.\n  - Warned about overreliance on tools that are difficult to adjust, specifically:\n    - Quantitative easing: “generated a lot of liquidity and expansion but was very difficult to rein in.”\n    - Forward guidance: should be used more sparsely.\n  - Recommended relying more on stress scenarios “to better transmit a sense of uncertainty.”\n- Broader economic diagnosis:\n  - A 2022 BIS report under his leadership warned about a global shift from low to high inflation and asked “Are we seeing signs of an end to the post–World War II globalization era?”\n  - Characterized recent developments (pandemic, resurgence of inflation, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) as signaling structural change in the world economy and international relationships rather than a repeat of 1970s supply shocks."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Selected numeric and date-specific facts (verbatim)",
      "content": "- Four-decade career.\n- Finished master’s and doctoral degrees in just three years beginning in 1982.\n- 1994 Tequila Crisis required a $50 billion bailout.\n- Mexico signed the first Flexible Credit Line (FCL) worth $47 billion in March 2009.\n- Became the first BIS general manager from an emerging market in 2017.\n- The BIS is “almost 100-year-old.”\n- The Innovation Hub:\n  - More than 100 employees.\n  - Seven centers around the world in five years.\n  - About 40 projects.\n- Project Nexus: commercial development by 2027; will allow 500 million people in five countries to send money peer-to-peer.\n- Project Agorá: over 40 financial institutions and leading central banks joined.\n- Carstens will be 67 years old at the end of his BIS term.\n\nAgustín Carstens: The Innovative Central Banker — Andreas Adriano, F&D Magazine, June 2025\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- The Innovative Central Banker\n  - The Innovative Central Banker (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - The Innovative Central Banker (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/people-in-economics-the-innovative-central-banker-andreas-adriano"
    }
  ],
  "bullets": [
    "[Markdown version](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/people-in-economics-the-innovative-central-banker-andreas-adriano/index.md)",
    "[Structured JSON version](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/people-in-economics-the-innovative-central-banker-andreas-adriano/index.json)",
    "[Bundle manifest](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/people-in-economics-the-innovative-central-banker-andreas-adriano/bundle-manifest.json)",
    "Authors: ANDREAS ADRIANO",
    "Published: June 2, 2025",
    "Over a four-decade career at the IMF, Mexico’s central bank and finance ministry, and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).",
    "Key positions:",
    "Age and personal background:",
    "Early practical experience:",
    "Crisis responses and policy innovations:",
    "Political and managerial skills:",
    "Innovation Hub creation and objectives:",
    "Hub scale and outputs:",
    "Notable projects and timelines:",
    "Cultural and institutional impact:",
    "Evolving stance on technology:",
    "Monetary policy analysis and recommendations:",
    "Broader economic diagnosis:",
    "Four-decade career.",
    "Finished master’s and doctoral degrees in just three years beginning in 1982.",
    "1994 Tequila Crisis required a $50 billion bailout.",
    "Mexico signed the first Flexible Credit Line (FCL) worth $47 billion in March 2009.",
    "Became the first BIS general manager from an emerging market in 2017.",
    "The BIS is “almost 100-year-old.”",
    "The Innovation Hub:",
    "Project Nexus: commercial development by 2027; will allow 500 million people in five countries to send money peer-to-peer.",
    "Project Agorá: over 40 financial institutions and leading central banks joined.",
    "Carstens will be 67 years old at the end of his BIS term.",
    "**The Innovative Central Banker**"
  ],
  "related": [
    {
      "title": "The Innovative Central Banker",
      "role": "document",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2025/06/pie.pdf",
      "summary": {
        "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2025/06/pie.pdf.md",
        "mime": "text/markdown"
      },
      "binary": {
        "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2025/06/pie.pdf",
        "mime": "application/pdf"
      }
    }
  ],
  "alternates": {
    "markdown": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/people-in-economics-the-innovative-central-banker-andreas-adriano/index.md",
    "json": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/people-in-economics-the-innovative-central-banker-andreas-adriano/index.json",
    "bundleManifest": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/people-in-economics-the-innovative-central-banker-andreas-adriano/bundle-manifest.json"
  },
  "generatedAtUtc": "2026-09-15T19:54:30.999Z"
}