As I expect my colleague Stuart Levey to describe in some detail, HSBC is in the process of shedding the historical compliance model that the bank has outgrown. This departure from the old model is transformative. Our former compliance structure was a product of historical growth by acquisition and it was a major factor behind some of the issues that I expect we will be discussing today. Under the former structure, the bank's Group Compliance function based in London mirrored HSBC's overall global corporate structure -- which is an international federation of affiliates around the globe. Many of these affiliates began as relatively small independent banks that HSBC acquired over the years with increasing frequency. As the bank's footprint grew through these acquisitions, HSBC's structure evolved into one with a small corporate center, on the one hand, and numerous affiliates around the world operating with a significant degree of autonomy and varying levels of direct interaction among those affiliates, on the other. Under the former model, the role of Group Compliance was an advisory one: we promulgated the baseline standards that all of the bank's affiliates were expected to follow. As the Head of Group Compliance, my mandate was limited to advising, recommending, and reporting. My job was not -- and I did not have the authority, resources, support, or infrastructure -- to ensure that all of these global affiliates followed the Group's compliance standards. Rather, final authority and decision-making rested with local line management in each of the bank's