Obama lines up Fischer for Fed

The former head of Israel’s central bank is poised to become the next vice-chairman of the US Federal Reserve.

President Barack Obama said yesterday that he intended to nominate Stanley Fischer, 
who led the Bank of Israel from 2005 to 2013, as the replacement for Janet Yellen when she succeeds Ben Bernanke at the helm of the Fed at the start of next month.

Obama said: “He is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading and most experienced economic policy minds.”

Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, said he was “delighted” that Fischer had been lined up for the role.

Fischer, a dual citizen of Israel and the US, is a former head of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his students included Bernanke and European Central Bank president Mario Draghi.