stronger but not enough to reduce an elevated unemployment rate. and we have seen indications of a slowdown in china and other large emes. perhaps the most striking thing about this is the degree of co - movement in gdp growth rates across economies. in reaction to the deteriorating outlook, we have seen a stream of policy actions, mostly by central banks as many fiscal authorities have felt constrained by excessive debt, deficits or both ( at least in the western hemisphere ). last november, the ecb announced three - year term repos, in unlimited scale. and more recently details of their proposed outright monetary transactions ( omts ). in the united states there is to be more quantitative easing ( qe ), including open - ended purchases of rmbs. in japan, just last week we saw a large expansion of their asset purchase programme. in the united kingdom we have been undertaking extra qe since october 2011 and earlier this summer we activated for the first time our new contingent facility of six month repos against a broad range of collateral – what we call the extended collateral term repo facility or ectrs. that was intended to act as a backstop should the risks in europe deepen and crystallise. usage has declined sharply since the first two operations suggesting that the degree of stress is not that great at the moment. more recently the bank and hm treasury jointly launched the funding for lending scheme ( the fls ) – of which more later. the full list of policy actions is much, much longer of course. the length of that list reflects the seriousness of the economic situation and the constrained ability of fiscal authorities. in the world of central banking, unconventional policies are the new normal. at least for now. financial markets have not just been suffering from external shocks. a series of home - made disasters have also rocked the sector. the ubs “ rogue trader ”, the losses at jp morgan ’ s chief investment office, libor manipulation at barclays ( with others under investigation ) and the mis - selling of ppi. these scandals have not so far been institution - threatening, but coming on top of the financial and macroeconomic crisis to date, they have helped to suck confidence from the financial sector just when it might otherwise have been recovering. chart 3 shows a “ heat map ” of markets generated by colleagues in the financial stability area of the bank. this chart uses indicators such as issuance amounts and bid - ask spreads to monitor market conditions. red indicates a non - functioning

second, on an ongoing basis, the committee should provide explicit communication about how its chosen actions are indeed consistent with its pre - announced resolution of the inflation - unemployment trade - off. here, i believe that the use of metrics like the mandate dashboard provides a useful form of discipline – both on our own actions and on the public ’ s understanding of those actions. bis central bankers ’ speeches in a speech he gave last may, chairman bernanke stated, “ transparency regarding monetary policy … not only helps make central banks more accountable, it also increases the effectiveness of policy. ” 3 i agree completely with this sentiment. and i see my two recommended future steps – clearer communication about trade - offs and the explicit use of metrics like the mandate dashboard – as promoting exactly the kind of transparency that chairman bernanke was describing. thank you for listening. i look forward to taking your questions. see chairman bernanke ’ s may 25, 2010, speech, “ central bank independence, transparency, and accountability. ” bis central bankers ’ speeches