focused culture to develop products and services to meet the banking needs of the public. whilst they may target the blue - chip companies in the system for good reasons, there is a clear need to also give the small business enterprise sector a focus and to provide services to meet the needs of this relatively neglected sector of the banking market. 17. on this note, mr. chairman, let me once again congratulate the board, management and staff of standard chartered bank on the opening of this new headquarters building. ba es o f gh a na nk t. 1 9 5 7 thank you all for the attention.

europe ’ s banking markets. for the first time, common legislation and rules will be applied by a single authority, strongly increasing transparency and banks ’ comparability across countries. but we must recognise that we have not reached the end of the journey. a single supervisor can more easily ensure comparability where there are single rules. remember the discussion about the different national definitions of non - performing loans in the context of the asset quality review. this is a telling example that the singleness of europe ’ s financial market is still challenged by piecemeal national rules and standards. in addition to banking supervision, there is a second area where fragmentation of europe ’ s financial market remains a stumbling block. seven years after the first shock waves of the financial crisis and two years after the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area, economic recovery is still some way off : euro area real gdp remained unchanged between the first and second quarters of this year. unemployment is still at 11. 5 %. prices in september rose by only 0. 3 % – and measures of inflation expectations have gone down. to restart growth, we must open financing channels, especially for small and medium - sized enterprises ( smes ). and this can best happen when financial markets are fully integrated. bis central bankers ’ speeches in the light of these various concerns, the aspiration to complete the single financial market has returned to the top of the agenda – and quite rightly so. the latest focus for this discussion is the creation of a european capital markets union. why a capital markets union? expectations for the project of a capital markets union are high. but to date, there is no common understanding of what it means or what it should look like. for the financial industry, it means new business opportunities ; for financial stability experts, it means better control of shadow banking ; and for entrepreneurs, it means better access to funding sources. as central banker, i would stress another major advantage of more integrated financial markets in the euro area : it would greatly facilitate the implementation of the ecb ’ s monetary policy. we are clearly at the beginning of the discussion of a capital markets union. but l believe that a broad public discussion is exactly what we need to generate ideas and start the opinionforming process. i therefore welcome the fact that lord hill has announced his intention to consult a broad range of stakeholders and conduct analyses before presenting more concrete proposals. i too do not have a ready - made blueprint in my bottom drawer. it is time to