After the crisis in emerging market economies in the mid-late 1990s, the adoption of internationally recognised standards, or codes of good practices, was seen as a way to help strengthen the international financial system. In April 1999, the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) was established and a set of codes and standards were defined at the international level.

Many emerging markets have undertaken reforms in order to reduce their vulnerability to a crisis by improving the transparency of their economies and financial sectors in order to discourage the accumulation of imbalances.