economic cycle is changing and growth is slowing rapidly, you might see different decisions being taken in frankfurt and in washington reflecting our different mandates. in addition to the influence of history, the eurosystem ’ s mandate reflects academic insights from the last 20 years or so. this research tends to support the view that monetary policy should only focus on price stability. other central banks around the world that have reviewed their mandates in recent years have tended to move towards having price stability as their sole objective. similar proposals have also been made regarding the fed. if the fed ’ s mandate were to change in the future, i expect it to also be in the direction of a more explicit focus on price stability. organisation of the two monetary unions a second area in which our different histories have played a role is in the way in which the eurosystem and fed are organised. while the fed was created ‘ from scratch ’ by the federal government for a single country, the eurosystem was established when twelve sovereign states voluntarily gave up their monetary autonomy. this is reflected in the fact that the eurosystem is some ways more decentralised than the fed. greater decentralisation is consistent with the eu - wide principle of subsidiarity, under which decisions are taken at the country or regional level where possible. this greater degree of decentralisation is apparent in areas such as monetary policy decision - making and operation, banking supervision and statistics. however, the fed can also be considered decentralised in other areas. in fact, when you exclude staff working on tasks unrelated to the monetary union, both systems have roughly the same number of employees. clearly, this does not tell us much about the potential for efficiency gains, except that it is around the same in both systems. the european monetary union is made up of sovereign countries. that means that it is not politically or publicly acceptable to carry out all central banking tasks at the ecb. our preference for subsidiarity also implies that there are limits to potential efficiency gains within the system. the pace of further centralisation is linked to the speed of further political integration in europe. as long as there is no federal european state, i expect that providing an independent view on national and euro area economic developments, within the context of area wide monetary policy, will be a key task for the dutch central bank. tasks related to financial stability and banking supervision will also remain part of our core business. in order to carry out these tasks effectively, we have to remain

under the glb act. b. allow bank holding companies to engage in insurance agency activities ( alternative to item 13. a. ) alternative amendment would allow all bank holding companies, including those that have not elected to become financial holding companies, to act as agent in the sale of insurance. currently, bank holding companies that do not become a financial holding company may engage only in very limited insurance sales activities ( primarily involving credit - related insurance ). however, most banks are permitted to sell any type of insurance, either directly or through a subsidiary. the amendment would rectify this imbalance by permitting all bank holding companies to act as agent in the sale of insurance. insurance agency activities involve less risk than insurance underwriting and other principal activities. bank holding companies would continue to be required to become a financial holding company to engage in insurance underwriting activities. 14. repeal certain reporting requirements imposed on the insiders of insured depository institutions amendment repeals the provisions of current law that require : ( i ) an executive officer of a bank to file a report with the bank ’ s board of directors concerning the officer ’ s indebtedness to other banks ; ( ii ) a member bank to file a separate report each quarter concerning any loans made to its executive officers during the quarter ; and ( iii ) executive officers and principal shareholders of a bank to report to the bank ’ s board of directors any loans received from a correspondent bank. the board has found that these reporting requirements do not contribute significantly to the monitoring of insider lending. these amendments would not alter the statutory limits or conditions imposed on loans by bank to their insiders. 15. provide an adjustment for the small depository institutions exception under the depository institution management interlocks act ( dimia ) currently, the dimia generally prohibits a management official of one institution from serving as a management official of any other non - affiliated depository institution or depository institution holding company if the institutions or an affiliate of such institutions have offices that are located in the same metropolitan statistical area. the statute provides an exception from this restriction for institutions that have less than $ 20 million in assets, but this dollar figure has not been updated since 1978. the amendment would increase this amount to $ 100 million. 16. flood insurance amendments these amendments would : ( a ) allow lenders to rely on information from licensed surveyors to determine whether a property is in a flood zone, if the flood map is more than ten years old ; ( b ) increase the “