  The recent financial crisis has stressed the need to understand financial
systems as networks of interdependent countries, where cross-border financial
linkages play the fundamental role. It has also been emphasized that the
relevance of these networks relies on the representation of changes follow-on
the occurrence of stress events. Adopting a topological approach we are able to
address the role that network structures play in the spread of shocks and
conversely, the effectiveness of stress events and its impact on the structure
of the networks. Here, from series of interbank liabilities and claims over
different time periods, we have developed networks of positions (net claims)
between countries. Besides the Minimal Spanning Tree analysis of the
time-constrained networks, a coefficient of residuality is defined to capture
the structural evolution of the network of cross-border financial linkages.
Because some structural changes seem to be related to the role that countries
play in the financial context, networks of debtor and creditor countries are
also developed. Empirical results allows to relate the network structure that
emerges in the last years to the globally turbulent period that has
characterized financial systems since the latest nineties. The residuality
coefficient highlights an important modification acting in the financial
linkages across countries in the period 1997-2011, and situates the recent
financial crises as replica of a larger structural change going on since 1997.
