With the deepest sorrow, the International Finance Forum (IFF) announces that Mr. Paul Volcker, the IFF founding member, co-chairman and honorary chairman, has passed away on December 9^th, 2019, aged 92. All IFF members and staffs deeply mourn the loss of our respected and venerable leader.

Mr. Volcker, born in September 1927 in New Jersey, was a renowned American economist and politician and one of the most powerful global leaders in the financial realm in his generation. He served as the Under-secretary of the Treasury of the United States and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. He was a true hero of the country, who played a critical role in stabilizing the American economy in 1980s. As Volcker’s successor at the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan praised him as the “Father of American economic vitality for the past two decades”. In 2009, after the outbreak of the global financial crisis, Mr. Volcker served as the Chairman of the US President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board by the invitation of President Obama. He stipulated and conducted the “Volcker Rule”, which brought a wide-ranging and profound influence on the world financial landscape.

As one of the founding members of the IFF, Mr. Volcker has long been the IFF Co-chairman and Honorary Chairman. He was a great friend of China, a close observer and a firm supporter of China’s financial reform and opening-up. He claimed several times that, “The International Finance Forum (IFF) is a vital platform for promoting international financial cooperation and development, and I hope I can proceed this important mission.”

May Chairman Volcker rest in peace.

In the course of his career, Mr. Volcker worked in the United States Federal Government for almost 30 years, culminating in two terms as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1979-1987, a critical period in bringing a high level of inflation to an end. In earlier stages of his career, Mr. Volcker served as Undersecretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs during the early 1970’s, a period of historic change in international monetary arrangements. He was subsequently President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and in earlier years was an official of The Chase Manhattan Bank.

Mr. Volcker retired as Chairman of Wolfensohn & Co. upon the merger of that firm with Bankers Trust. From 1996-1999, Mr. Volcker headed The Independent Committee of Eminent Persons, formed by Swiss and Jewish organizations to investigate deposit accounts and other assets in Swiss banks of victims of Nazi persecution and to arrange for their disposition. From 2000 – 2005 Mr. Volcker served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the newly formed International Accounting Standards Committee overseeing a renewed effort to develop consistent, high-quality accounting standards acceptable in all countries. Upon leaving public service in 1987, and again in 2003, he headed private, non-partisan Commissions on the Public Service, each recommending a sweeping overhaul of the organization and personnel practices of the United States Federal Government.

In 2004, Mr. Volcker was asked by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to chair the Independent Inquiry into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program, resulting in identification of substantial corruption and malfeasance. In 2007, Mr. Volcker was asked by the President of the World Bank to chair a panel of experts to review the operations of the Department of Institutional Integrity. That effort has culminated in broad reform of the Bank’s anti-corruption effort. In , which ended in February, 2011 Pursuing his many continuing interests in public policy, Mr. Volcker among his extensive non-profit activities has been former Chairman of the Trilateral Commission and former Chairman of the Trustees of the Group of 30.

Educated at Princeton, Harvard and the London School of Economics, Mr. Volcker is a recipient of honorary doctorates from each of his “alma maters”, as well as a number of other American and foreign universities.

In 2010, Mr. Volcker was appointed as the Co-chairman of the International Finance Forum (IFF), which is an independent, non-profit and non-governmental international organization, founded in Beijing in 2003 under the initiation of many primary international organizations, such as the U.N., and a substantial number of financial institutions and leaders.