jorgovanka tabakovi : introductory address - 2024 banking law conference introductory address by dr jorgovanka tabakovi, governor of the national bank of serbia, at the 2024 banking law conference, belgrade, 18 november 2024. * * * esteemed speakers and guests, dear colleagues, esteemed associates, seven months ago, the national bank of serbia sponsored the establishment of the banking law association, and i had the pleasure of inaugurating its founding assembly as governor. a few experts in this field came together with the vision of gathering many more professionals and practitioners in banking in the future. their aim was to facilitate the exchange of genuine knowledge, experience, and professionalism – qualities that seem increasingly scarce across all fields of social life and work, including banking law. furthermore, they sought to make this legal discipline appealing to younger colleagues as the safeguarding of the financial stability we have worked so hard to achieve will be their task, to be accomplished through regulation and practice. today, i have the honour and pleasure of opening the first international conference organised by this association, which will address a variety of topics in banking law and banking in general. i support the efforts of this association to organise an international conference that offers an opportunity, particularly for foreign experts, to share their experiences and those of their countries in applying various banking regulations that are either already being implemented in serbia or will soon be. for lawyers in a country that is a candidate for eu membership, it is extremely important to consider the practices of eu member states when implementing and applying eu regulations in daily operations. i also appreciate your decision to make today's conference engaging for a broad range of participants by selecting a variety of topics, including representative actions, green finance, the application of sanctions, and resolution. if i were to start with resolution, i would have much to say. the situation we found in 2012 necessitated the application of certain resolution tools, such as the purchase and assumption of assets and liabilities, nearly two years before the eu adopted the bank recovery and resolution directive. we implemented this tool in the cases of three out of the four banks whose licenses were revoked. the resolution of these three banks cost approximately eur 750 million, but the cost would have been even higher had this tool not been applied. by 2014, we were already working with the imf to incorporate this directive into the law on banks. when the war in ukraine began, we used these bank rescue mechanisms for the first time,

jean - claude trichet : insurance companies, pension funds and the new eu supervisory architecture speech by mr jean - claude trichet, president of the european central bank, at the ceiops conference 2009, frankfurt am main, 18 november 2009. * * * ladies and gentlemen, all financial gatherings in our current circumstances are important occasions to reflect on the past and future of finance. today ’ s gathering is focused on insurance and pension funds, two very large segments of the financial markets. i am therefore very grateful to dr bernadino – whom i congratulate on his recent appointment as chairman of ceiops – for the possibility to share some thoughts with you on the role of these segments in europe ’ s financial system and its emerging supervisory architecture. i shall also look forward to learning about your own deliberations at this conference and the conclusions you draw from them. before we reflect on the future, let me say a few words about the present situation. the european central bank ’ s vice - president, lucas papademos, will present our latest financial stability review and our comprehensive assessment of the financial sector in the middle of december. as you might imagine, the assessment is particularly complex at this point. this is in part due to the considerable heterogeneity among financial institutions. but it is also complex, because there is a need to disentangle what might be called “ self - sustainable stabilisation ” from that which is purely due to the unprecedented programmes of official support for the financial system. i would like to confine myself to the euro area insurance sector. we note that despite the recovery in financial markets in the course of this year, most insurers still reported lacklustre financial performances in the first half of 2009. this was mainly because underwriting continued to be challenged. high risk aversion among retail investors reduced the demand for life insurance products. at the same time, underwriting of other insurance products was adversely affected by the economic freefall of late 2008 and early 2009. more recently, in the third quarter, we note that many insurers reported improved results. we mainly attribute this to the recovery in financial markets. yet there are reasons to be cautious about the durability of the recent recovery of insurers ’ profitability. the supportive environment for investment income is unlikely to continue once market conditions begin to normalise. at the same time, underwriting income is subject to the existing downside risks in the overall macroeconomic