Prof. Marlene Amstad has been Appointed Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA

At its meeting on 1 December 2017, the Federal Council appointed Marlene Amstad (49) Vice-Chair of the FINMA Board of Directors. Marlene Amstad is a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen and lectures also at the University of Bern. She has been a FINMA Board member since 1 January 2016. FINMA Chairman Thomas Bauer remarked: "Marlene Amstad is an internationally experienced economist with an excellent network of contacts. In addition, she is also a recognised financial market expert. We are very pleased about her appointment to Vice-Chair of the Board."

FINMA is Switzerland’s independent financial-markets regulator. Its mandate is to supervise banks, insurance companies, exchanges, securities dealers, collective investment schemes, and their asset managers and fund management companies. It also regulates distributors and insurance intermediaries. It is charged with protecting creditors, investors and policyholders. FINMA is responsible for ensuring that Switzerland’s financial markets function effectively. The headquarters of FINMA is in Switzerland’s defacto capital Bern.

Marlene Amstad is a Professor of Practice in Economics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. Marlene’s research interests are Money, Banking and Financial Markets with an emphasis on central banks, asset management, and financial institutions. Before she joined the Chinese University of HongKong, Shenzhen, she worked at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) office in Hong Kong and coordinated the Asian Bond Fund (ABF) initiative for 11 leading central banks. Marlene also acted as Deputy Director at the Swiss National Bank (SNB), served as the Head of Investment Strategy and Financial Market Analysis. At the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, she developed the “Fed New York staff underlying inflation gauge (UIG)”. In joint work with People’s Bank of China, she developed a similar gauge for inflation in China. At Credit Suisse, she built quantitative credit risk models and developed business cycle indicators at KOF-Swiss Economic Institute.