securitisation markets in future. further details are available on the bank ’ s website at http : / / www. bankofengland. co. uk / markets / marketnotice100719. pdf. a bank may not submit its own covered bonds in long term repos, only those of other issuers. but it may submit either in the dwf. second, the bank ’ s permanent operations are intended to offer liquidity support for the banking system, not for the market in any one particular type of security. intervening in a partial way could create unfortunate market distortions. if there is a genuine market for a private sector security, it should be able to support itself in the medium - term without special forms of liquidity support from the authorities. third, the asset purchase programme, although focussed on buying gilts, was intended to support the liquidity of all private sector securities by forcing would - be gilt holders to purchase more risky assets ( rather than by direct central bank purchases of those assets ). there is plenty of evidence to suggest that was indeed the outcome and most private sector markets have recovered to some degree. the covered bond market has also been supported by the introduction of fsa regulations, to provide additional comfort for investors. 16 a second topical issue is bank funding more generally. it is often asserted that the special liquidity scheme provides a funding source for banks and that, given continuing pressures on them to raise funds to support lending, we should extend the lifetime of the scheme. the first point to note is that the scheme facilitates funding but does not provide it directly. rather, as i have outlined today, the sls provides a collateral upgrade and the private sector remains the ultimate source of funding as the treasury bills lent under the scheme are turned into cash in the market. a similar point can be made about debt issued under the government ’ s credit guarantee scheme – the government provides a guarantee but it is still the market which buys the bonds and provides the cash. as these schemes come to an end, the challenge for the banks is not so much the sourcing of an additional quantity of funding. it is to roll over that existing market funding into different funding instruments. more generally, a central bank should not allow its liquidity operations to become, or even to be perceived as a source of sustained funding for banks or for any other form of mediumterm lending. the only medium - term source of commercial bank funding, and hence for their

the adequacy of firms ’ capital and risk management during this global, systemic event is certainly being tested. the information we have from the largest uk insurers shows the industry was well - capitalised going into this crisis and has so far remained so, with aggregate solvency ratios around 150 % 2. but given the exceptional uncertainty generated by the current crisis, we expect insurers to increase their monitoring of the additional risks presented by covid ‐ 19, and where necessary to update their risk and capital assessments accordingly. a key challenge of the covid - 19 crisis for us has been isolating the signal – the increased risk to insurers and their policyholders – from the noise caused by markets finding their way with very sharp but temporary overreactions. https : / / www. bankofengland. co. uk / - / media / boe / files / speech / 2019 / insurance - risk - management - in - a - changing - world - speech - by - charlottegerken category 1 & 2 life and non - life insurers regulated by the pra all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches solvency ii contains several measures that were intended to or have otherwise leant against the pitching and rolling of financial markets. these include the matching adjustment ( ma ) and the transitional measure on technical provisions ( tmtp ) ; also the standard formula symmetric adjustment of the equity capital charge ( the symmetric adjustment ), the volatility adjustment ( va ), and the ladder of intervention. in addition to benefiting financial stability, these measures have helped to filter out the noise in financial markets, supporting the pra in assessing that insurers are adequately capitalised for fundamental risks in their business and protecting policyholders. the ma is, for uk life insurers, the most material solvency ii long - term guarantees measure, and has been the most significant in the current crisis. the ma is intended to enable insurers to hold assets to maturity and avoid changes in spread from impacting their solvency. when appropriately cash - flow matched, their locked - in funding means that annuity writers are unlikely to have to sell assets prior to maturity, even in a severe stress. in the current crisis, the ma has worked as expected and has shielded insurers from the market dislocations that occurred in march of this year. as spreads have increased, annuity writers have not