Supervisor of Israel's Capital Market, Insurance, and Savings Authority Moshe Bareket has unexpectedly quit. He has informed Minister of Finance Avigdor Liberman that he plans stepping down in two months, after four years in the job and one year short of the end of his five year term of office in October 2023.
Bareket supervises more than NIS 2 trillion managed by Israel's institutional investors - a bigger sum than the public's deposits in all Israel's banks. In the past the capital market regulator was only appointed for a four year term and Bareket's predecessor Dorit Salinger was the first to serve five years in the job. Bareket has previously confided in associates that he would have preferred a four year appointment so perhaps it should be no surprise that he is resigning now.
Moreover, with elections in November and no fully functioning government and Knesset, Bareket would be unable to implement major reforms in the coming months and this too may have persuaded him to step down.
In his resignation announcement, Bareket said, "This has been an intensive and significant term of office during which we advanced many reforms for the public, both in savings and insurance. We coped with the consequences of Covid on the capital market and insurance and worked to strengthen stability and corporate governance in insurance companies and institutional investors."
Since coming to office in November 2018, Bareket has successfully restored good relations between the regulator and the organizations it oversees, which were left frayed by his predecessor. He has led important reforms on arrangement for marketing supplementary health insurance as well as digitalization of the companies providing pension savings and plans.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 2 2022.
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