London: Mark Carney won a reputation for his handling of the global financial crisis and now faces one of the toughest challenges of his career — steering the Bank of England through Brexit.

Carney on Monday said he would extend his term as governor by one year to guide the Bank of England as Britain negotiates its exit from the European Union.

He committed to stepping down in June 2019 in order to “contribute to securing an orderly transition to the UK’s new relationship with Europe”.

Carney will therefore remain in London for the two-year negotiating period with Brussels, a timeline set out by Prime Minister Theresa May who has promised to kick-start Brexit talks by the end of March 2017.

The first foreigner appointed as governor since the British central bank was founded in 1694, Carney started his tenure in 2013 in the wake of the global financial crisis.

He was described as “outstanding central banker of his generation” by Britain’s then finance minister George Osborne who announced the appointment in November 2012.

“He is quite simply the best, most experienced and most qualified person in the world to be the next governor of the Bank of England,” Osborne told parliament at the time.

The Canadian replaced Mervyn King, who served as governor for a decade and described Carney as “an outstanding choice” to succeed him.

Irking the Brexiteers

More recently, Carney prompted the ire of anti-EU campaigners by warning leaving the bloc would pose “the biggest domestic risk to financial stability”.

Weeks after the June 23 referendum, Carney slashed interest rates to a record low of 0.25 per cent and announced a vast stimulus package to combat the economic fallout of the shock Brexit result.

“We’re living through a time of considerable uncertainty,” he said when the measures were announced in August.

Before moving to the Bank of England, Carney served as governor of the Bank of Canada and won praise for guiding the country through the economic downturn relatively unscathed.

After moving to London he continued to chair the global Financial Stability Board (FSB), through which he has been involved in fighting the Eurozone’s long-running sovereign debt crisis.

Ahead of his career leading central banks, Carney previously worked for 13 years at US investment bank Goldman Sachs in London, New York, Tokyo and Toronto.

Canada in his sights

Although he had the option of staying on in the role until 2021, Carney had previously indicated he would step down in June 2018 after serving a five-year term.

“It matters because of the ages of my children, and when they would finish school, and the ability to come back here,” Carney told the Globe and Mail newspaper in 2012.

“Our intent is to move back to Canada. I’m Canadian. My family is Canadian. It makes sense,” he said.

Carney, who has a British wife and four daughters, was born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada.

He studied at Harvard University where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics and thereafter completed a master’s degree and a PhD in economics at the University of Oxford.

AFP