Welcome!

Background: About 'The Wolpertinger'

The 'Wolpertinger Club' is an association of university academics with a common interest in the economics of financial systems and financial institutions. It began as a club of professors who shared these common interests and decided to meet once a year to discuss their research, exchange ideas and develop ways to co-operate in the research and teaching of banking, financial institutions and the economics of financial systems.

This 'club' began in Bavaria (the 'Wolpertinger' is a mythical Bavarian animal) and Professor Jack Revell (Cambridge and Bangor) was the main driver of it. Other important founder members were:

• Professor Leo Schuster ( Ingolstadt )
• Professor Marco Onado ( Bocconi )
• Professor Francesco Cesarini ( Milan )
• Professor Jean-Paul Abraham ( Namur and Leuven )

The Wolpertinger Club has met once a year for a two-day conference for almost thirty years. This annual conference focuses on empirical research, policy issues and contemporary developments in financial systems. Each conference has a Jack Revell Session devoted to contemporary policy challenges (in 2010 it will consider 'Reregulating out of the Crisis?') and a session devoted to the exchange of teaching ideas and experiences.

The Club's official title is the 'European Association of University Teachers of Banking and Finance'. The Management Committee (of 15 members) is chaired by Professor Ted Gardener (Bangor University). There are 70 or so members of the Club and around 60 usually attend the annual seminar, which is held in a different European location each year. The 2010 conference will be held in Bangor, Wales, UK. The Club operates with a minimum of formality and bureaucracy.

Regards

Prof. Ted Gardener

Chair of the Wolpertinger Committee