This highlighted the urgency of working toward a solution over the weekend, ideally a solution that would definitively address the prospect of default by Bear. Bear approached several major financial institutions, beginning on March 13. Those discussions intensified on Friday and Saturday. Bear’s management provided us with periodic progress reports about a possible merger. Although several different institutions expressed interest in acquiring all or part of Bear, it was clear that the size of Bear, the apparent risk in its balance sheet, and the limited amount of time available for a possible acquirer to conduct due diligence compounded the difficulty. Ultimately, only JPMorgan Chase was willing to consider an offer of a binding commitment to acquire the firm and to stand behind Bear’s substantial short-term obligations. As JPMorgan Chase and other institutions conducted due diligence, my colleagues in New York and Washington continued to examine ways to contain the effects of a default by Bear. As part of these discussions, we began to design a new facility that would build on other liquidity initiatives taken by the Federal Reserve System, and provide a more powerful form of liquidity to major financial institutions. Following the announcement on March 11 of the Term Securities Lending Facility, which allowed primary dealers to pledge a wider range of collateral in order to borrow Treasury  BIS Review 39/2008  5  securities, we had consulted with market participants on how to structure the auctions to maximize their potential benefits to market functioning. Those discussions yielded a number of helpful suggestions.

I also welcome the IMF’s continuous engagement and responsiveness to the experiences of countries in this region, that have been using these policy tools for many decades. And I hope the IMF will continue to fine-tune the Institutional View on Capital Flows and its interaction with macroprudential policy. To my mind, this will provide the 3/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  impetus to a deeper partnership between members and the IMF as a trusted policy advisor. The second area relates to our policy approaches. They must be clear, coherent and complementary to ensure a more human-centered approach. Experience shows that for globalisation to make sense to the man on the street, they must ‘feel’ and be ‘touched’ by its benefits, and be satisfied that their lives are better than before. Public engagement is important to address specific concerns. Domestic policy programs and implementation must be coherent, comprehensively explained and easily understood, and complemented by policy measures consistent with the intended outcomes of international arrangements. Robust communication and transparent assessments can contribute to deeper levels of public understanding and acceptance. With information now easily accessible to all and sundry, authorities are no longer the sole arbiter of knowledge. Authorities, therefore, cannot maintain a one-dimensional communication strategy to explain the multi-dimensional policies and the consequent impact of those policies that we implemented. Finally, we must fully embrace the explosion of technology to keep pace with the altered global economic landscape. Come 2020, more than 24 billion internet-connected devices will be installed.