April 20, 2025 11:00am by David Farrar

The many Reserve Bank managers

Following the news that two reserve Bank managers had resigned, I checked out their management structure.

They have six Assistant Governors and a massive 27 directors or third level managers. Just looking at the job titles shows that there is obvious reductions that can be made. This is no reflection on the individuals doing those roles (who could be very good) – it is just based on what the Reserve Bank Act says the Reserve Bak should be doing. In short it is:

Monetary policy
Prudential regulation and supervision
Manage deposited compensation scheme
Financial system monitoring
Bank notes and coins

Now let’s look at the 27 directors. You have:

Prudential Policy
Financial Markets
Enforcement and Resolution
Financial Stability Assessment and Strategy
Specialist Supervision
Prudential Supervision

You could clearly combine those six roles (which are all around prudential regulation/supervision and financial markets) to two or three directors.

Talent and People Operations
Organisational Capability and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Physical and Personnel Security

These three are all HR related. You could make a case for the security role to be seperate so reduce to one or two directors.

Programme and Strategy Delivery
Strategy and Business Performance
Strategic Adviser

You don’t need three strategy directors.

Digital Solutions / Chief Technology Officer
Data, Statistics and Analytics
Knowledge and Information Management
Information Security (CISO)

These are all in the IT area. Now this doesn’t mean they should all be merged as CTO, CIO, CISO etc can all be need valuable roles. But it depends on the size and complexity of an organisation.