banks. so i thought it would be helpful to discuss the relevance of a few of them. first of all, with respect to board practices, the basel committee states that the board has overall responsibility for a bank, including its business and risk strategy and financial soundness in governance. this might appear to be a statement of the obvious, but it is worth thinking about what this implies for boards of directors. perhaps the most important consequence, as the basel committee states, is that the board must pay attention to the long - term interests of the institution and to those of all stakeholders, including depositors and creditors. in other words, good corporate governance means not focusing on short - term returns to shareholders, but concentrating on what is in the best long - term interests of the company. this will often involve taking into account not only the interests of the owners, but also the interests of creditors, employees, and other stakeholders. it requires to the board to take a broadly balanced view of its responsibilities and to think of the long - term and not just of the next quarter ’ s results. the basel committee also recommends that there should be a clear distinction between the responsibilities of the board and those of senior management. while the board takes overall responsibility for the direction of the business, the senior management should ensure that a bank ’ s activities are consistent with the business strategy, risk appetite and policies approved by the board. an especially important responsibility of senior management is to ensure that there are appropriate systems for managing risk, including a comprehensive and independent risk management function. the importance of an independent risk management function is something clearly underlined by the financial crisis. prior to the crisis, some banks did not give the risk management function the stature and authority that it needs. rather than being treated as an integral part of the business, risk management and compliance were seen as overhead costs which were a distraction from profit generation. risk managers lacked the direct access to the board which would have given them the ability to challenge the chief executive and other senior managers. accordingly, the basel committee recommends that banks should appoint a chief risk officer who should be a senior executive with independence and authority who is in overall charge of a bank ’ s risk management functions. this principle is also of general relevance to other types of businesses. think, for example, of the experience of bp during the gulf of mexico oil spill earlier this year. subsequent investigations into the company have shown that risk management, and planning for contingencies such as a major oil spill,

; and it allows advantage to be taken of the resources and management capacity of those savings banks which, on the basis of their greater soundness, have led the various integration processes. other far - reaching measures have been brought to bear in this restructuring process. for instance, there is the reform of the savings bank regulatory framework, which is allowing for their conversion into institutions more subject to market discipline and better prepared to meet the requirements of the new international regulatory framework. and we have the tightening of provisioning arrangements, which has entailed stricter requirements in respect of asset valuation criteria. i would also like to highlight the efforts to reinforce transparency, through the disclosure of exhaustive information on all spanish institutions ’ exposure to assets considered doubtful. the latest measure of significance was the approval in parliament of a royal decree - law ( rdl ), whose aim was to dispel doubts about our banking system. these doubts emerged essentially as a result of the contagion of the mistrust stemming from the sovereign debt crisis in certain euro area countries. three months later, this rdl may be said to have contributed significantly to allaying fears about the soundness of our banking sector and to substantially speeding through the restructuring of our savings banks. the rdl reinforces the solvency of all spanish institutions, requiring of them a core capital ratio of at least 8 %, with a further 2 % required for unlisted banks and those more reliant on wholesale markets, which are those in which the main doubts were concentrated. the rdl also stipulates that institutions receiving public aid should pursue their financial activity through a bank, which will better enable them to obtain funds on markets and will contribute to enhancing their transparency in the face of investors. the process laid down in the rdl is unfolding as scheduled. all institutions that have applied for aid from the frob have sent their recapitalisation plans to the banco de espana, and the work on the valuation of these institutions, which will be set by independent experts, is already under way. of the 13 institutions or groups of institutions that need to reinforce their capital, the four banks will fund themselves on the market, while the savings banks have submitted various strategies, which initially or ultimately include the possibility of obtaining the necessary funds from the frob, which acts as a backstop that assures the markets that all spanish institutions will have a core capital ratio of at least 8 %. now, how and when parliament has decreed, the