which is one reason why, alongside banking union, the capital markets union, championed by commissioner hill, also needs to be implemented fully and as quickly as practical. i am not saying “ as quickly as practical ” for no reason. if we want to restore in europe the stability that is the premise for a return to prosperity, we need to consider the economic costs entailed by recurrent uncertainty over the operating environment of european firms. not only does it cause a loss of growth today, but by impeding investment, it may also weaken our potential in a more lasting way. increasing the horizon of visibility is desirable generally, but it is true that an apparently never ending train of reform is not greatly conducive to reducing uncertainty. there is a simple solution to that : specify what we want to change, clarify the calendar to do it, and then just do it. this is exactly how the ssm was established. and that is perhaps the last area of significance of the ssm that i have not yet mentioned : it is the yardstick against which we can now judge other achievements. bis central bankers ’ speeches

bit more than half of the $ 6 trillion in outstanding debt backed by cre. figure 4 shows that much of that exposure is in smaller regional and community banks. on average, cre loans make up only about 5 percent of total assets at large banks but around 30 percent of assets at smaller banks. those high concentrations have caused us to step up our supervisory work with community and regional banks that have significant cre concentrations and to augment our regulatory data for this sector. for instance, data available from sec form 10 - q filings suggest that office exposures account for a small share of most - 7regional banks ’ cre loans. 4 all told, i view cre risks currently as sizable but manageable, and i will be paying close attention to the sector in the short and medium run. private credit risks related to cre are well known to investors and supervisors alike. another big part of our job is to look for emerging vulnerabilities, and one that has garnered my attention is private debt. private credit generally refers to direct loans made to businesses, mostly middle - market firms, by nonbank entities such as private debt funds and business development companies. in the u. s., private credit funds ’ assets under management have grown rapidly in recent years. they were estimated to stand at $ 1. 1 trillion as of september 2023, comparable in size to both the high - yield bond and institutional leveraged - loan markets. history teaches us that rapidly growing lending often involves weak underwriting or excessive risk appetite. the growth in private credit is likely attributable to a confluence of factors. after the financial crisis of 2007 – 09, private equity investments and leveraged buyouts grew quickly, and demand for credit from middle - market and private equity - sponsored firms grew along with them. some borrowers appear to prefer private credit deals to bank lending because of easier deal execution and greater contractual flexibility, particularly during the ups and downs of the economic cycle. in addition, the growth of private credit coincided with a period in which stronger bank regional banks in this context are banks that have between $ 10 billion and $ 100 billion of total assets. this information reflects staff calculations based on data collected from a representative sample of individual banking organizations ’ sec form 10 - q filings for the third quarter of 2023. - 8regulation and supervision were put in place, suggesting that those actions to make banks safer played a role. overall, i think that the growth