Herbert Poenisch, Member of the International Monetary Institute of RUC’s International Committee, Former Senior Economist of BIS. Dr. Herbert Poenisch has accumulated wide experience on an international level, working as senior economist for various international organizations, such as the BIS, IMF, OECD and the Asian Development Bank, as well as on a national level, working as Economist for the Austrian National Bank. He is intimately familiar with the analysis of banking systems and financial markets. He gained his thorough knowledge through the collection and analysis of statistics of banks, securities and derivatives markets. Over a long career he has kept abreast of innovations in the financial markets, their impact on systemic financial stability. He organized over a hundred workshops and seminars on these topics for central banks and regulatory authorities in various parts of the world, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, various regions of Africa, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and finally south Asia as well as the Far East, in particular China. In addition, he set up a virtual organization, the eBIS where documents and discussions on these issues are posted for central banks and regulatory authorities.