Press Release No. <a name="P16_75"></a>03/58

Effective May 1, 2003, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will rename its existing Treasurer's Department as the Finance Department to more accurately describe the department's range of functions and responsibilities.

The renamed department, which has undergone a series of reorganizations in recent years, is about to complete a final phase that includes introduction of state-of-the-art financial information systems. The financial administrative payments and control system, or FACTS, was implemented in 2002, and the system for conducting and reporting on financial operations with member countries, which is known as iFin, will become operational on May 1.

The mission of the department will continue to be to mobilize, manage, and safeguard the IMF's financial resources to ensure that they are deployed consistent with the IMF's overall mandate. This entails major responsibilities for the institution's financial policies and for the conduct, accounting and control of all financial transactions. In addition to overseeing the financial aspects of IMF lending operations and managing transactions in Special Drawing Rights among members, the department formulates and implements policies to safeguard the IMF's financial position. These include assessing the adequacy and distribution of the IMF's capital base (quotas), the setting of net income targets, the level of precautionary balances, and the rates of charge and remuneration. Among other responsibilities, it directs the investment of funds in support of Poverty Reduction Growth Facility lending and Heavily Indebted Poor Countries grants and conducts assessments of borrowers' central banks to provide the Fund with reasonable assurance that disbursements of IMF resources are adequately safeguarded.

Eduard Brau, the current Treasurer, who will become Director of the Finance Department, stated: "The renaming of the department more accurately reflects the department's role in managing the IMF's finances and caps the broader restructuring which has been underway for some time. The introduction of the new, integrated systems will allow us to carry out and report on the Fund's financial transactions more efficiently while maintaining the highest standards of integrity, accuracy, and timeliness."