The guard has changed at the International Monetary Fund.

In a remarkable clean sweep at the top of the institution, last year's arrival of a new managing director, the former German finance ministry official, Horst Kohler, has been followed by the replacement of three more of the most senior staff in the institution.

Along with a change of administration in the US - the IMF's most influential shareholder - the overall effect has been to put an entirely new guard in charge of the organisation charged with maintaining global financial stability.

This year is also seeing a raft of changes in the executive directors who constitute the IMF's board and set policy. The entire set of Group of Seven executive directors either has already or will change by the end of the year. This raised in some minds the possibility that IMF management would be able to exert a bigger influence over policy.

In theory, the direction of the institution could therefore change radically. But early indications suggest that, in practice, the change is less cataclysmic than it might appear.

The G7 still appears to be largely in control of setting the IMF's agenda. Its new focus on hunting down money laundering and terrorist finance, which formed the centrepiece of the recent IMF meeting in Ottawa, was a G7 initiative somewhat pressed on a reluctant management which is trying to constrain, not expand, its area of competence.

Indeed, since the three departing officials between them represented a wealth of experience at the IMF, the new management may take some time before they can assert themselves.

Particularly hard to replace is Stanley Fischer, the highly-respected first deputy managing director, who arrived at the IMF in 1994 and has since shepherded the institution through the Mexican, Asian and Russian financial crises. The position - in effect, the second-in-command at the institution - was more or less created for him and he proved to be a hands-on manager of crises, often flitting around the world and taking personal charge of individual situations.

His replacement, the economist Anne Krueger, is expected to prove less of a micro-manager. Formerly (like Mr Fischer) chief economist at the World Bank, she has a strong background in development economics. Her appointment - traditionally strongly influenced by the US - also reflects her background as a conservative Republican. During her time at the World Bank, she impressed colleagues with her robust defence of trade liberalisation and her unwillingness to brook dissent from those she managed.

But how much effect this will have on the IMF's policies is very far from clear. It might suggest that she will keep up the pressure for liberalising and deregulating measures in IMF programmes. But the prospects for more fundamental change seem limited.

Ms Krueger's past stated views on the IMF have been fairly mainstream. In testimony before a congressional committee in 1999, Ms Krueger said of the IMF that a "number of relatively small and unglamorous changes, rather than a major overhaul, is what is called for".

Moreover, before joining the Fund, Ms Krueger presented a strong defence of the IMF's role in resolving the Asian financial crisis - often a source of criticism for those wanting big change in the IMF. She shows little evidence of sharing the radical downsizing zeal associated with some conservative economists such as Allan Meltzer, the head of the Congressional commission which recommended big changes to the IMF and the World Bank.

The Meltzer recommendations chime with some instincts within the US administration. Paul O'Neill, the US Treasury secretary, came to office saying that the era of big rescue packages for countries in crisis - with which Mr Fischer and the previous Clinton administration were strongly associated - was over. But in the first two cases which came up, Turkey and Argentina, the administration has ended up backing large IMF bail-outs.

The other appointments, although all from outside the IMF, also do not suggest that radical change is in the offing, though the way the IMF is being restructured does suggest a cultural shift in approach.

The chief economist role, vacated earlier this year by Michael Mussa, has been filled by Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard professor and expert in international and financial economics. Mr Rogoff as yet is finding his feet and shows few signs of replicating the outspoken style of his predecessor; his one newsworthy comment so far, that a recession in the US was "a done deal", he retracted almost as soon as he had made it.

The new head of the policy department, replacing the IMF veteran Jack Boorman, is Tim Geithner. Mr Geithner, a former under-secretary for international affairs at the US Treasury under Larry Summers, was originally proposed for the first deputy managing director position, the suggestion emanating from Mr Kohler. But although he originally joined the Treasury as a staff member rather than a political appointee, his association with the Democrats seems to have told against him and he has joined the IMF as department head rather than second-in-command.

The final appointment out of the four is to fill a new role - head of the newly-created capital markets department. The department - which has been some time in the inception but was finally created by Mr Kohler - is intended to bring in some expertise from the private sector to increase the IMF's links with the financial markets.

Gerd Hausler, the capital markets head, combines policy-making experience at the Bundesbank with private-sector experience as head of the investment banking part of Dresdner Bank. The aim of his department will be to act as a bridge between the more academic and policy-focused parts of the IMF and the markets, on whose co-operation policy-making often depends.

With the new senior staff still settling into their roles, it is too early to tell how the division of responsibilities will lie - and in particular if any of the new staff will pick up the role of firefighter-in-chief from Mr Fischer. But the prospect of changes in policy being as dramatic as the changes in personnel seem low.