This caused a gigantic deficit on the current account held with the central bank and a necessity of emergency support from the FED. The financial consequences of a computer system error were incurred not only by the Bank of New York, but also by many of its counterparties. Illing M. “A Review of Notable Financial Stress Events”, in: “Essays on Financial Stability”, Bank of Canada, September 2003. BIS Review 60/2006  banking system, and dilemmas regarding the crisis support and the deposit guarantee system. 44 The question whether the taxpayers of the host country, or solely those of the home country, should pay for possible bankruptcy of a bank, remains open. Conducting operations in various countries and segments of the financial market (including but not limited to combination of the banking and insurance activities) leads to creation of complex structures of financial groups. This phenomenon has been included in the banking supervision organisation. At the EU level, this fact is reflected in the Directive on supplementary supervision of credit institutions, insurance companies and investment firms in a financial conglomerate, 45 and in Poland – by the Supplementary Supervision Act. 46 The merit of the Act is a complex risk analysis within a single capital group and coordination of control and supervisory activities by a leading supervisor, with the collaboration of authorities that supervise other entities in the financial conglomerate. 47 The Act sets forth cooperation with foreign supervisors. Globalization of financial markets brings about new challenges for central banks as regards crisis management.

Uniform and commonly applicable standards lower the cost of acquisition and analysis of information and reinforce the financial system stability. The most significant standards include, inter alia, the following: •  the principles of effective banking supervision, drawn up by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS),  •  international accounting standards, over 100 countries have adopted or based their own accounting standards on the International Accounting Standards (IAS) or the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS),  •  master agreements on executing transactions on the interbank market ― ISDA, ISMA,  •  statistical methodologies elaborated by, inter alia, the IMF, the BIS, and the WB that ensure compliance of the data gathered with the statistical guidelines and their international comparability,  •  the principles of best practice, elaborated by professional associations of financiers. The development of the modern financial market infrastructure has also covered regulatory changes (e.g. the bankruptcy law) and the establishment of modern transactional systems, payment systems, settlement systems, risk management systems, and information services – such as Reuters or Bloomberg. Stock exchanges and brokers have created modern trading platforms which enable  3  Hannoun H. “Internalisation of financial services: implications and challenges for central banks”, speech at the 41 Conference of the South East Asian Central Banks (SEACEN), Brunei Darussalam, 4 March, 2006. BIS Review 60/2006  st  7  prompt offer-matching, executing transactions and straight through processing. Development of the infrastructure has removed barriers to further market globalization.