In my view, this absence of academic debate and challenge contributed, in no small measure, to international prudential standards being set at levels which were, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, not just too low but ridiculously too low. We must not repeat that same mistake. 29  Results from a poll conducted by Populus for the Bank of England in March 2016 of around 2,000 adults. 30  Douglas (1945). 31  For example see Bailey (2015) on prudential regulation, Cunliffe (2015) on macroprudential policy, Carney (2015) on markets and Bank of England (2016) on buy-to-let underwriting standards. 32  Bank of England Systemic Risk Survey 2015 H2, available at: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/ Pages/other/srs/srs2015h2.aspx. 33  Armstrong and Davis (2016). BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  So academic challenge, challenge which causes policymakers to think, and possibly rethink, their calibration of prudential standards, is an essential ingredient of a healthy financial and regulatory system. The academic debate about prudential standards for banks is not closed; it has only just opened. And one of the Bank’s public policy responsibilities is to help nurture that policy challenge. Indeed, this was one of the prime motivations behind the Bank’s new research agenda, launched last year. Third, there is a clear and obvious complementarity between improved prudential standards for banks and protecting bank customers. Since January 2011, UK banks have paid out more than £ billion to customers in redress for mis-sold Payments Protection Insurance (PPI) alone. 34 These are astonishingly large sums.

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