september 3, 2018 bank of japan post - crisis futures markets keynote speech at the symposium commemorating the 30th anniversary of stock index futures haruhiko kuroda governor of the bank of japan ( english translation based on the japanese original ) introduction it is a great honor to be invited to speak at this symposium commemorating the 30th anniversary of stock index futures in japan. a decade has passed since the collapse of lehman brothers, which triggered the global financial crisis. during the last 10 years since that time, global financial markets have faced and have been affected by various negative political and economic shocks such as the european debt problem in the first half of the 2010s. japanese stock and futures markets have not been immune and the turnover of cash stocks and the trading volume of stock futures were sluggish for some time after the global financial crisis ( chart 1 ). thereafter, however, against the background of the recovery of the global economy and solid corporate performance, global financial markets have rebounded to pre - crisis levels. this year also marks the 5th anniversary of the business integration of the tokyo stock exchange group and the osaka securities exchange. even following the global financial crisis, various initiatives aimed at enhancing user - friendliness have been taken to meet the diverse needs of investors and firms including the introduction of new products, extension of trading hours, and it system reform. those initiatives have been vital for maintaining and enhancing the functions of the japanese exchanges since the crisis, and i would like to pay tribute to all of those who have worked so hard to carry out those initiatives. moving on, as it has been 30 years since stock index futures first appeared in japan, let us take this opportunity to return to the basics and re - clarify the function of futures contracts ; futures contracts, in principle, are used to " transfer risks, " namely to hedge risks or speculate on price changes by trading assets on a future date at a predetermined price. in this regard, derivatives contracts such as forwards also have the same function. however, the two contracts differ in that forwards are derivatives contracts based on bilateral agreements between two parties, while futures are derivatives contracts that are traded on " exchanges, " including clearing houses. futures contracts traded on exchanges are standardized and offer the benefits of low transaction costs, fair and transparent price formation, risk management measures such as margin requirements and the marking to market of assets, and safe central clearing ; thanks to these features, futures contracts are expected to attract more market participants and thereby realize enhanced market liquidity.

andreas dombret : sino - german financial stability forum – concluding remarks concluding remarks by dr andreas dombret, member of the executive board of the deutsche bundesbank, at the sino - german high level workshop, frankfurt am main, 11 july 2011. * * * dear mr yi gang, dear guests, after a long day of intensive discussion, concluding remarks should be short. so let me only briefly point to some consensus and challenges ahead. despite different stages of development of both countries, the discussion at the workshop has shown a broad consensus on the importance of price stability as the primary objective of monetary policy, that fiscal stability is not only a prerequisite for a balanced and sustained economic growth but also for national and global financial stability and that a sound and a stable banking system is the first line of defense against financial crisis. but the discussion has also highlighted and underlined important challenges ahead. i will briefly go through some of these challenges and structure my further remarks by the main surprises during the financial crisis : the dynamic of contagions and market dynamics, the spillovers into the real economy and the vulnerability of countries. turning to the first point, the financial crisis has shown an unexpected strong and fast transmission of the us sectoral financial shock around the globe. despite the fact that significant progress has been achieved to measure and identify risk exposures of globally acting banks and the shadow banking system, for example, by enhanced network analysis, important challenges remain. beyond an intensified monitoring of these risk exposures on this more microprudential level, global monitoring of capital flows and changing financial transmission channels of external shocks have to be enhanced. moreover, we should not only focus our monitoring on the ups and downs of exchange rates, interest rates and cds, but even more on the underlying reasons for these movements. therefore, an extended monitoring should also have a close eye on the significant structural changes of the financial markets and systems, which build the most important base for different response patterns to financial crises across time and countries. in my view, it might also be fruitful to intensify the discussion about an appropriate assignment of roles in this regard on a global, regional and national level. there are no doubts that the imf has a significant comparative advantage on the global level, due to its broad country coverage. the imf should use this potential in an intensified bottom - up and top - down approach in collecting relevant data and information and using this kind of information for enhanced in - depth analysis – in