assets, properties, shares, etc. a consistent monetary policy ensuring price stability will in fact also strike a reasonable balance of interests of these groups. however, monetary policy ultimately safeguards the interests of the most vulnerable households most affected by high inflation. currently, we can see that lending to individuals and businesses is ongoing. mortgage lending, our top priority, is growing at a record pace. lending rates throughout last year and in the first half of this year were influenced by the government ’ s subsidised mortgage programme. the government ’ s support for housing lending has by now become more targeted. it has to be targeted for us to avoid a situation where accelerated growth of property prices ( their growth in the primary market was accelerated precisely by the subsidised programmes ) will continue to reduce housing affordability for households. mortgage rates are slightly higher now than at the time of the subsidised programme, but their growth over the same period is still below inflation. this is due to the fact that long - term rates are primarily shaped by inflation rather than a current key rate. banks are aware that we will return inflation to target, which is exactly what they are guided by when formulating their interest rate policy. therefore, there is no contradiction between the affordability of mortgage loans and the tightening of monetary policy currently needed and that we are implementing. on the contrary, monetary tightening works to constrain the growth of mortgage rates. they have risen far less than inflation. unsecured consumer lending is rapidly expanding too. banks often lure people with belowinflation rates — which may seem like an excellent offer. the borrower thinks : i take a loan for repairs and buy all the construction materials today, or else tomorrow they will be more expensive ( indeed, prices have grown rapidly in this market ) so i will end up overpaying less than if i bought the materials later. this is a typical situation. the same logic works with regard to other goods. and borrowers end up getting ripped off by a loan rate with an additional loan agreement attached, or through tied products forced on them. we are fighting this practice. fines for misselling need to be raised. banks should calculate the full cost of credit in such a way as to make all hidden fees visible to borrowers. it is an absolute priority for us protecting individuals ’ rights in their interaction with financial providers. now that inflation is above target, our action may even be tougher than before. it is important that

to return to the so — called neutral range in the years to come, which is projected at 5 – 6 %. that is the range when inflation neither accelerates nor decelerates. i will briefly outline the alternative scenarios. the alternative scenarios are not built in the abstract, but in order to see how the situation might change and how monetary policy would change then. we construct three alternative scenarios. scenario one is ‘ pandemic expansion ’ ; scenario two is ‘ global inflation ’, and the third is ‘ financial crisis ’. should the pandemic intensify, we would promptly change over to monetary policy easing to help the economy live through restrictions. in contrast, were the global inflation scenario to prevail, we would tighten monetary policy for quite a while. in the financial crisis scenario, the key rate would first be raised to deal with volatility and financial market problems, and the policy would thereafter become accommodative to support a recovery. in each of the scenarios, we are capable of returning inflation to target over the forecast horizon. we create these scenarios so that our policy is predictable for entrepreneurs and the real economy even if things change. in that scenario planning, we have to look into many uncertainties and multiple factors. in conclusion, i would like to thank you for your constructive cooperation and the efforts to finalise the monetary policy guidelines, both within the working group and the joint meeting of several committees. importantly, this year ’ s guidelines take into account the feedback we have received from deputies. for example, we have started to publish a forecast for the average annual key rate, which we believe further increases the predictability of our policy. in line with our discussions this year, it is recommended that future releases of the monetary policy guidelines offer insights into such key areas as the infrastructural impact of public investment and the development of specific industries from the economic potential perspective, as well as an assessment of demographic trends and the climate agenda. we will try to cover all these points in future releases of the guidelines. thank you so much for your time. i am ready to answer your questions. 4 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches