affairs division, dealing in particular with global financial stability issues relating to the international monetary fund. some of you have already met him, and i am certain that he will be a worthy successor to thomas notheis. one final thought i would like to leave you with : our decision to have a permanent representative here in mumbai shows that the bundesbank acknowledges the importance of the indian economy and the role of its financial market in asia and the rest of the world. i strongly believe that our presence here in mumbai will deepen friendship and cooperation, not only between alexander sattler and his peers but also between the bundesbank and the reserve bank of india, and eventually between germany and india. thank you! bis central bankers ’ speeches

the global level. the financial stability board is currently finalising criteria that global systemically important banks will have to fulfil in future regarding their capital structure. in particular, they will need a minimum amount of loss - absorbing capacity. this will allow for an orderly resolution of those banks and protect taxpayers from having to foot the bill. another major step towards remedying the “ too big to fail ” - problem has been taken with regard to cross - border resolution. recently, 18 global banks and the international swaps and derivatives association agreed to implement new rules on derivatives trading. whenever a large bank fails, these rules will allow authorities to temporarily suspend the rights of other banks to terminate derivatives contracts. this will buy precious time to organise an orderly resolution of the failed bank. while these steps certainly bring us closer to resolving the “ too big to fail ” - problem, there is still further to go. thus, further cooperation on this and on other issues is necessary to make the financial system a safer place over time. international cooperation always starts at the personal level, with personal relations forming the root of successful cooperation. this is bis central bankers ’ speeches where our representatives here in mumbai come into play. their task is to build networks, to share information and ideas, to explain the bundesbank ’ s positions and to facilitate cooperation. for the past four years, thomas notheis has served as the bundesbank ’ s representative here in mumbai. there is no doubt that he has had a challenging job : as he was our first representative in india, he could not draw on existing experience and had to build up a network from scratch. judging from the distinguished crowd gathered here today, he has done an excellent job. i would therefore like to thank him personally and on behalf of the bundesbank for his service here in mumbai. given the excellent job that thomas notheis has done in mumbai, i am particularly happy that he is taking his experience and skills to another post abroad. for the next three years, he will serve as the bundesbank ’ s representative in beijing. but coming back to mumbai, i would also like to take the opportunity to welcome our new representative, alexander sattler. before joining the bundesbank, he previously worked as a policy advisor at giz, the german federal government ’ s agency for international development cooperation. furthermore, with his background in both economics and political science, he worked most recently as an expert in the bundesbank ’ s international monetary