Federal Reserve Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles addresses the Economic Club of New York in New York City, U.S., October 18, 2018. LONDON, Oct 14 - The Financial Stability Board, the global watchdog for financial risks, should be more selective in prioritising new work and focus on vulnerabilities that are genuinely cross-border, cross-sectoral and systemic, a review of its processes found.

The review, the findings of which were published on Wednesday, was commissioned to examine whether the FSB's approach to developing, drafting and presenting policy has itself created obstacles to implementation.

It was conducted by the Independent Monitoring Review (IMR) group chaired by Randal Quarles, a former FSB chair and former US Federal Reserve vice chair for supervision and follows a 2025 report that noted a " concerning trend " of delayed or stalled implementation of FSB recommendations.

The IMR found that national factors, including legal frameworks, market structures and political capacity, were the main reasons why implementation has lagged.

It said the FSB's own processes had not always sufficiently accounted for those circumstances, in some cases making implementation more difficult or more contentious than necessary.

The FSB should default to high-level principles when a vulnerability is still emerging, adding more detailed requirements only as its understanding of the risks develops, the IMR added.

The FSB's recent work has included recommendations to improve cross-border payments and for the supervision of global stablecoins. It is also developing non-binding guidance for practices on AI use. Also on Wednesday, the FSB proposed eight recommendations that aim to modernise supervision frameworks.