nout wellink : the position of women in the financial sector address by dr nout wellink, president of the nederlandsche bank and president of the bank for international settlements, at the conference on “ women at the decision making positions ”, organised by the russian association of regional banks, amsterdam, 24 february 2003. * * * i rarely have the privilege of addressing an audience largely made up of women. that in itself is telling - and is not a good sign. but the fact of the matter is that the financial world is still dominated by men. that applies to both commercial and central banks, and the netherlands is no exception. so, in the run - up to international women ’ s day, you have every reason to hold this conference to focus on the role of women at senior management levels in the financial sector. the position of women in the labour market can and must be improved, notably in the financial sector. that ’ s not just because i think women deserve a better deal but also, if not mainly, because it would be good for companies and for society as a whole to see an improvement in women ’ s labour market participation and their chances to advance to the top. the world would be a bleaker place if it only consisted of men, and the same applies to organisations. an organisation with a mix of men and women on all levels has a more pleasant atmosphere, which possibly makes for a better performance. moreover, the economy as a whole will benefit from higher women participation rates, for the participation rate among women in the euro area is one of the reasons why the growth of income per capita here lags behind that in the united states. and women should be appropriately rewarded, of course. which reminds me of what was written about alan greenspan in a recent biography. when still running his own financial consultancy, some 40 years ago, greenspan chose to recruit women rather than men. his motivation was purely rational. he was convinced that women were just as qualified as men, but since the labour market did not fully appreciate the quality of women they were undervalued and hence cheaper. greenspan used his sharp insight to benefit from this arbitrage opportunity. back to the present day. the good news is that in the euro area the labour market participation for women aged between 24 and 45 is far higher than that for those of 45 and over. this indicates an improvement over time and is a promising development. the bad news is that women still lag far

##sees such a fund, financed by levies on private banks. according to commission estimates, it will reach a size of about €55 billion by 2025. i welcome this proposal in principle. but i think that, during the build - up phase, clarification is needed on what will happen if there are exceptional circumstances which lead to the fund ’ s resources being exhausted. the proposal is unclear here. in my view a credible backstop is essential to ensure that resolution costs can be separated from national budgets. to sum up, what defines a single system is having a single set of rules that can be enforced evenly from the centre. we are on the way to achieving this for supervision. i see it as essential that we also achieve it for resolution. banking union is ultimately a way of establishing a single financial market where banks are separated from their sovereigns. to paraphrase mervyn king, we therefore need to ensure that banks are both european in life and european in death. building a stricter system let me turn to the second element of a genuine regime change, building a stricter system. putting in place new rules and institutions for supervising and resolving banks is essential. but it is equally important to use them in a way that leads to a measurably stronger and more stable banking sector. how can we achieve this? bis central bankers ’ speeches a new approach to supervision the first building block is a willingness on the part of policy - makers to make bank balance sheets more transparent according to the common standards of the ssm. the ssm regulation puts us in a position to do this by requiring a comprehensive assessment of the banks the ecb will directly supervise. this requirement goes beyond a purely accounting exercise. we have to ensure that the assessment is rigorous and managed from the centre. there is no point in having a new pair of glasses if you are not willing to open your eyes. our current plan for the comprehensive assessment is to have three elements. first, a risk assessment, which will identify broad risk factors, including funding and liquidity risks. second, a balance sheet assessment, which will review asset quality using calculation, qualification and valuation checks of a broad risk - based nature, with central quality assurance according to a common methodology. this will draw on the expertise of external consultants. third, a stress test, which will apply the results to an adverse scenario. the linkages between the balance sheet assessment and the stress test still need to be defined in detail. what