has become too strong – and is partly why european banks are so weak compared with their us peers. do you think that ’ s true? the profitable us banks are in any case leaving european banks further behind. i find that idea quite amusing. conversely, it means that the weaker the supervision, the stronger 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches the banks. the truth is that strict supervision leads to strong banks. institutions become more resilient when supervisors require them to hold adequate capital to cover their risks and insist on sufficient liquidity and better risk management. the us institutions received comprehensive state aid during the crisis. and now the united states is even rolling back regulation. both of these represent a disadvantage for domestic banks. up to now, the us authorities have generally only revoked rules that went beyond international standards. but you do have a point. it ’ s important that large international institutions meet the same standards, particularly in trading. that is why we need to have the new basel rules implemented in all major financial centres. moreover, let ’ s not forget that the united states managed to quickly return to a growth path. that has of course been of great benefit to the us banking system too. we were much slower in that regard, also in tackling structural problems. one outcome of the financial crisis was the ecb ’ s controversial asset purchase programme. the governing council has indeed decided to stop purchases, but only very slowly. meanwhile german social security funds have been suffering enormously from the negative interest rates for a long time. shouldn ’ t you be moving more quickly? ending the asset purchase programme is a major first step. but i agree that the side - effects of an extraordinarily loose monetary policy increase over time and i have pointed that out repeatedly. but after pursuing such an expansionary monetary policy, it would be wrong to now move abruptly in the other direction. that wouldn ’ t help either the economy or price stability. but rather? i am very much in favour of normalising monetary policy. that implies that we should gradually increase interest rates again. however, we can only do that if we are on a sustainable path towards price stability. moreover, we should not forget that the social security funds would be in a much weaker financial position today if economic growth had been held back by very tight monetary policy and higher unemployment. and german savers too sometimes forget that they can only save if they have a job. the trick therefore is to move steadily towards the exit without disrupting

mario draghi : ecb press conference – introductory statement introductory statement by mr mario draghi, president of the european central bank, naples, 2 october 2014. * * * ladies and gentlemen, the vice - president and i are very pleased to welcome you to our press conference. i would like to thank governor visco for his kind hospitality and express our special gratitude to his staff for the excellent organisation of today ’ s meeting of the governing council. we will now report on the outcome of our meeting. based on our regular economic and monetary analyses, and in line with our forward guidance, we decided to keep the key ecb interest rates unchanged. following up on the decisions of 4 september 2014, we also decided on the key operational details of both the asset - backed securities purchase programme and the new covered bond purchase programme. this will allow us to start purchasing covered bonds and asset - backed securities ( abss ) in the fourth quarter of 2014, starting with covered bonds in the second half of october. the programmes will last for at least two years. together with the series of targeted longer - term refinancing operations to be conducted until june 2016, these purchases will have a sizeable impact on our balance sheet. the new measures will support specific market segments that play a key role in the financing of the economy. they will thereby further enhance the functioning of the monetary policy transmission mechanism, facilitate credit provision to the broad economy and generate positive spillovers to other markets. taking into account the overall subdued outlook for inflation, the weakening in the euro area ’ s growth momentum over the recent past and the continued subdued monetary and credit dynamics, our asset purchases should ease the monetary policy stance more broadly. they should also strengthen our forward guidance on the key ecb interest rates and reinforce the fact that there are significant and increasing differences in the monetary policy cycle between major advanced economies. together with the monetary accommodation already in place, the determined implementation of the new measures will underpin the firm anchoring of medium to long - term inflation expectations, in line with our aim of maintaining inflation rates below, but close to, 2 %. as all our measures work their way through to the economy they will contribute to a return of inflation rates to levels closer to our aim. should it become necessary to further address risks of too prolonged a period of low inflation, the governing council is unanimous in its commitment to using additional unconventional instruments within its mandate. a separate press release will provide further information on the modalities of