Brown urges IMF reform, global financial order

The International Monetary Fund must be reshaped to help regulate the world's financial system and avoid a repeat of the global credit crisis, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday ahead of an EU summit.

"The IMF has to be rebuilt as fit for purpose for the modern world," Brown said after talks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

He also called for an early warning system for the international economy and more cross-border supervision of multinational financial companies.

Brown has led calls in the wake of the financial crisis for a review of the global financial institutions established by the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, arguing they are no longer fit to oversee this century's heavily-interlinked financial centres.