the unconventional measures taken by central banks and governments have been particularly noteworthy. but regulators and supervisors have also acted decisively in response to the environment of extreme uncertainty besetting us. unlike in the case of the global financial crisis, international regulators have tried to act as coordinated as possible. this has been essential in order to foster financial stability and maintain a level playing field in an increasingly interconnected world. a large part of this response has focused on enabling the financial sector to supply the liquidity necessary for the business fabric to be able to survive in the short term. in europe, a range of measures have been taken, including notably the “ quick fix ” package of banking rule amendments. these have, inter alia, ( i ) reintroduced prudential filters to neutralise the effect of the change in the value of public debt on capital ; ( ii ) allowed reserves at central banks to be excluded from the leverage ratio calculation ; ( iv ) incorporated a favourable provisioning treatment for exposures with public guarantees ; ( v ) brought forward the entry into force of certain measures, such as the supporting factor for smes and the new prudential treatment of software ; and ( v ) allowed market model overshootings to be ignored, given the volatility arising from the covid crisis. as regards the usability of buffers, the bcbs, the european banking authority ( eba ) and the ssm have in various statements referred to the objective pursued with the introduction of liquidity and capital buffers in basel iii, reiterating that such buffers may be used appropriately to support the economy in a situation like the current one. also, the message has been conveyed that supervisors will allow sufficient time for these buffers to be replenished. at the same time, the bcbs and the eba have published technical guidelines on the prudential treatment of guarantees and moratoria, clarifying that the flexibility required by the current health situation must not be at the expense of the prudence needed when recognising and provisioning for non - performing loans. in this respect, accounting regulators and banking supervisors have made statements regarding the application of ifrs 9, suggesting that the flexibility allowed within the international accounting standards should be used to avoid the mechanical application of factors and hypotheses to estimate expected losses, as this would be clearly procyclical and inappropriate in the situation arising from covid - 19. supervisory response allow me to end my address by referring to

caused by the pandemic is entering a second phase. i have already mentioned on another occasion that, with the prudence due, i consider that the set of measures to support lending, in the form of guarantees and moratoria, along with the regulatory and supervisory actions i have referred to, have achieved the objective of cushioning the enormous initial impact of the crisis, preventing the situation of business illiquidity from leading necessarily to a solvency crisis. in fact, according to preliminary data gathered by the ssm, following the expiry of moratoria in various euro area countries, most borrowers resume payments and only a small fraction were unable to do so. the situation is evolving and thus the response required of the sector is also evolving. unfortunately, the disease remains with us, and this justifies maintaining many of the exceptional measures to support the economy, in particular for certain sectors. accordingly, the government ’ s decision to extend the grace period by a year and the maturity of financing with an ico guarantee by up to three years seems appropriate to us. in any case, although the consequences of the pandemic have yet to appear on bank balance sheets, the crisis will inevitably lead to structural changes. not all economic activity will return to its previous levels. banks need to be preparing now for this impact. more resources need to be allocated to risk analysis and management, including the active management of rollovers and renegotiations with those customers that will almost certainly not be able to comply with their original contractual conditions. early identification of difficulties is fundamental in this context. banks must proactively identify those customers who, despite temporary difficulties, have a viable business, for whom debt restructuring may be an appropriate option. for those cases of non - viability, it is clearly necessary to promote ways of ensuring an orderly exit from the market. it is vital that banks envisage sufficiently prudent scenarios in their capital projections and be conservative when setting aside impairment provisions. in this respect, i have already pointed out that the easing in the third quarter in provisioning by spanish banks does not seem prudent in the current circumstances. allow me to conclude. the exceptional situation caused by the pandemic continues to evolve and, thus, so do the public support measures and the focus of our activities as supervisors. without a doubt, the development of an effective vaccine would contribute decisively to clearing the medium - term horizon, eliminating the most extreme economic scenarios, although the