Canada’s most famous central banker is a Canadian no more.
Mark Carney, who was Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013, has officially become a British subject. He took out British citizenship on Wednesday, fulfilling a promise he made back in 2013 when he accepted his current job as Governor at the Bank of England.
Carney, who was born in the Northwest Territories and raised in Edmonton, has a wife who is British. He too became a British national by taking an oath to the Queen after fulfilling the requirements for naturalization. Those include at least three years of residence in the United Kingdom, and passing a "life in the U.K." test.
The Mayor of the London borough of Camden tweeted a photo of Carney at his citizenship ceremony, which included 40 other people from 26 foreign countries. Carney is due to leave the Bank of England in January 2020. He’s already extended his stay at the central bank twice because of Brexit, and hasn’t revealed what he might do after he steps down from his current post.
Carney promised to become a British citizen when he became the first foreigner to be appointed Governor of the Bank of England in the central bank’s 300-year history. The news was welcomed by George Osborne, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who hired Carney away from the Bank of Canada five years ago.
