olli rehn : impact of structural economic changes on monetary and macroprudential policies keynote speech by mr olli rehn, governor of the bank of finland, at the 2019 risklab / bof / esrb conference on systemic risk analytics, helsinki, 24 may 2019. * * * ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the bank of finland. i want to thank the co - organisers, the european systemic risk board and risklab, for the opportunity to share my thoughts at this conference on systemic risk analytics – not least because in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the maintenance of financial stability has regained its original position as the second key pillar of central banking policy. this comeback stems from certain permanent features of our economies and their development. modern economies are in constant change. some changes are cyclical. economic variables like gdp, housing prices and the volume of lending often increase strongly in upturns and decrease equally strongly in downturns. at times, economies are hit by booms. at other times, they are hit by downturns and recessions. economies are also subject to more fundamental, longer - term changes. in economic history, major changes in technology, population growth and economic systems have had sweeping effects on economic growth, the welfare of citizens and the birth and death of occupations and industries. it is our task – as economists, social scientists and other scholars – to try to identify the key short - term and long - term economic changes and to weigh their consequences, benefits and risks. the policymakers´ challenge, in turn, is to make proper adjustments in their economic and other policies when old policies become outdated for the new world. in this keynote, i try to identify some major ongoing economic changes that in my view require a rethinking of current monetary policy strategies and macroprudential policies. structural economic changes and monetary policy let us start from the monetary policy, in general and in the euro area. before addressing the longer - term issues, it may be worthwhile to remind ourselves of the major economic recovery that has taken place in the euro area since 2013. in five years, more than 10 million new jobs have been created. unemployment – although still too high – has declined by 4 percentage points to below 8 per cent. the accommodative monetary policy of the european central bank has substantially contributed to the recovery. recently, the global growth outlook has been shadowed by significant uncertainty. the trade tensions between the us and china have escalated

constantinos herodotou : sustainability, digitization, profitability statement of mr constantinos herodotou, governor of the central bank of cyprus, at fireplace chat " challenges for banks in a new operating environment " at the 10th banking forum, nicosia, 9 december 2022. * * * i would first like to thank andrea for accepting my invitation to participate at today's event and share his valuable insights with us. in the aftermath of the two consecutive crises, the first round adverse effects have been limited for the banking sector. nevertheless, with the level of uncertainty still tilted to the upside, the full extent of the consequences has not yet materialised especially in the area of credit risk. if we were though to draw a lesson from both crises, this would be the significance that technology plays for the banking sector, not only for the conduct of the normal banking operations but also for the sustainability of its profitability. the banking sector has proven resilient and continued to provide credit to the economy. however, the legacy structural weaknesses of the sector remain. at the same time, competition from challenger banks has been increasing. therefore, the banks need to move more decisively in the road to digital transformation. this is presumably the only way if they are to address their structural weaknesses while retaining their competitive advantage against new players in the market. investing in technology can become the catalyst in their effort to strengthen efficiency and build sustainable profitability. it is acknowledged that digitalisation comes together with the favourite topic of any supervisor - risks, and especially cyber risk. this has been duly recognised by all european institutions and authorities and is very high on the supervisory agenda. pivotal role in the efforts to address cyber risk, is the enactment of the digital operational and resilience act. i expect that this will be a cornerstone in the efforts to improve operational resilience of the banking sector. cyber - attacks have increased significantly over the last couple of years with though a limited number of incidents, both in numbers and impact, in the cyprus banking sector. nevertheless, banks should gear up their resilience to withstand the anticipated incidents, while also ensuring that a robust disaster recovery plan and business continuity plan are in place for possible such incidents. at the same time, the banking sector faces the challenges of the adverse macroeconomic developments, which may deteriorate asset quality, leading to an upward pressure on impairments and provisions. prudent provisioning policies and the provision of fast and viable restructurings to customers is