Peter Nyberg: senior economist

PETER NYBERG, author of the latest report on the Irish banking sector, is a senior official in the Finnish civil service.

Since 1998 he has been director general of financial services at the Finnish ministry of finance, where his team is responsible for financial market legislation, supervision of the Finnish treasury and financial stability.

He previously worked as a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund and as an adviser to the board of Bank of Finland. He completed his doctorate in economics in 1980.

Mr Nyberg’s report into the causes of the systemic banking crisis in Ireland, commissioned by Brian Lenihan when he was minister for finance, follows two earlier reports also commissioned by Mr Lenihan.

A report by international banking experts Klaus Regling and Max Watson examined the monetary and fiscal policies in the period leading up to the crisis, as well as economic developments internationally and in Ireland.

A second report, by Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan, concentrated on the role of the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank in the run-up to the crisis, including the events surrounding the decision of the last government to issue a blanket guarantee on bank deposits on September 29th, 2008.

Both the Honohan and Regling/Watson reports, published last year, pointed to a need to understand the failures in the management of the Irish banks.