Primera Página – Agencia de Noticias –
Bogotá.- The technical manager of Banco de la República, Hernando Vargas, referred this Tuesday to the situation of the Colombian financial system in the face of the prolonged scenario of high real interest rates in Colombia.
«We see that there is no dilemma between monetary policy and financial stability. We see that the financial system is sufficiently solid and liquid to be able to withstand without any systemic risk problems a prolonged period of real interest rates such as those implicit in our macroeconomic forecast,» Vargas said.
He added: «Normally, for any monetary scheme to work, the financial system needs to be very solid, so that it can withstand economic fluctuations, strong movements of GDP up or down, strong movements of the exchange rate and interest rates».
In this sense, he warned that, in the absence of this, it is possible that the system will not withstand strong movements of any of these variables and it will be necessary to sacrifice some objective. This is clearly not the case in Colombia.
And he added: «The country has extremely well capitalized banks, with very robust liquidity indicators».
Finally, he stressed that «under these circumstances it is possible for macroeconomic policy to make the adjustment that the economy requires to be sustainable in the medium term, without generating any risk for the financial system».
