complete and effective legislation in this field, together with valid practices and experience, all of which will need to be turned to account in the negotiations with the community institutions. europe has shown that it wants to increase the stability of the financial system while preserving a high degree of integration of the markets in the area. the analyses of the different authorities will need to be supplemented to arrive at truly uniform risk evaluations in the supervisory colleges of banking groups. within the colleges for which we are responsible, we have vigorously promoted this integration. the objective of reconstructing a world financial system with more capital, less debt and the ability to withstand the collapse of large financial institutions without public aid is now unanimously shared. agreement on a gradual transition towards this objective is also close. it is important that the international banking community participate in this process and fully appreciate the determination with which it is being pursued. that the new rules threaten the recovery by causing a contraction in credit is a claim that is easily refuted : the new system will be introduced gradually, and credit stopped expanding some time ago without the new rules even being known. moreover, to believe that regulatory arbitrage will make it possible to elude the new rules underestimates the broad consensus on their introduction. it is possible that the combination of the various measures under discussion will result in a fall in banks ’ profits, but it will also reduce the risks they run. it will be advisable to respond to the former with appropriate and far - reaching reorganizations and not to oppose the latter with the assumption of new risks. italian banks thanks to the interventions of the last few months, italian banks are bolstering their liquidity and capital, an essential condition for tackling the significant deterioration in loan quality and profitability. banks ’ liquidity continues to improve, thanks in part to the partial reopening of the wholesale markets for funds. in january euro - area banks issued about €60 billion of bonds on the euromarket, compared with an average of about €30 billion a month in the second half of 2009. italian banks are well placed to cope with the international environment, which is being made more complex by the phasing out of support measures by monetary authorities and governments. their capital bases have been strengthened by share issues, disposals of nonstrategic assets, the ploughing back of a large part of profits and, in some cases, public interventions. between the end of 2008 and september 2009 the average core tier 1 ratio

management companies belonging to banking groups, in october we issued rules on the exercise of the parent company ’ s powers of direction and coordination. groups must comply with them by june. to revive the sector, it is also necessary to intervene on the transparency and correctness of dealings with customers. the differences of tax treatment that penalize asset management products vis - a - vis competing instruments must be eliminated. lastly, the asset management industry ’ s strategies and organizational arrangements need to be reviewed. as a consequence of the crisis a trend is taking hold, with strong encouragement from central banks and the financial stability board, to shift over - the - counter trading to organized markets, to use central counterparties that can minimize the risks for individual participants and to centralize the data on contracts in so - called trade repositories. we hope the work by the european commission to define a harmonized legislative framework will soon help to increase the transparency, liquidity and stability of the derivatives market, above all that in credit default swaps, which is most susceptible to speculative manoeuvres. italy ’ s market infrastructures are at a decisive juncture. there is growing competition between organized markets and in post - trading. at european level the centralization of settlement is a tangible prospect and the development of a market patterned on our collateralized interbank market is becoming a possibility. italy has everything necessary to respond to these challenges. it has trading platforms for financial instruments and post - trading infrastructures that are at the cutting edge in europe and integrated with the international markets. wholesale trading in government securities takes place on a transparent and broad regulated market that held up well under the crisis and has recovered in the last few months. by international standards, the post - trading structures are among the least costly. italian banks have significant ownership interests in the main systemic infrastructures ; if they recognize their value, they can draw great benefits from them. bank - customer relations the bank of italy has completed a broad survey – with more than 500 banks accounting for some 80 per cent of the current accounts supplied to customers – of the types and amounts of the fees applied to credit facilities and overdrafts. the results, transmitted to the ministry for the economy and finance, to which the decrees assigned supervisory tasks regarding bank fees, were made available today on the bank ’ s website. 1 they show a marked differentiation among the intermediaries : although there has been an overall reduction, in a third of the cases the charge has increased. the