there were often political tensions between the need to save individual institutions in order to prevent the whole system from collapsing and the moral hazard concerns of bailing out large institutions. however, even crisis - prevention tools may be politically unpopular, especially in good times. furthermore, as has been argued in an international monetary fund staff discussion note7, financial stability is difficult to measure but crises are evident, so policy bayoumi, t et al. ( 2014 ). ‘ monetary policy in the new normal ’. international monetary fund staff discussion note. page 11 of 12 failures are observable, unlike successes. as noted in the paper, ‘ central banks would find it difficult ( even ex post ) to defend potentially unpopular measures, precisely because they succeeded in maintaining financial stability ’. any perceived failures on the financial stability front have the potential to undermine monetary policy independence through a general loss of credibility of the central bank. in conclusion, the role of central banks has changed since the global financial crisis. there is a sharper focus on financial stability issues, and there is also a different way of looking at these issues. this, however, does not mean that other areas of policy have been downplayed. in the wake of the crisis, central banks were relied upon, possibly excessively so, to help the recovery from the global recession and to avoid deflation. the recovery has taken some time. fortunately, there appears to be a sustained recovery in the global economy, and there are now tentative moves by central banks in the advanced economies to normalise monetary policy settings. it would also appear that the concerns that extraordinary monetary accommodation would generate widespread inflation have not transpired. although central banks have been given expanded mandates, the role of ensuring price stability has not been undermined or minimised. it is as important and as relevant as ever, and remains a crucial pillar of central banking. thank you again, bank of ghana, for the honour of addressing you at this celebration of 60 years of central banking in your country. page 12 of 12

t t mboweni : signing of a syndicated loan and comments on the south african economy comments by mr t t mboweni, governor of the south african reserve bank, on the occasion of the signing of the usd1, 5 billion dual tranche syndicated term loan facility, london, 18 july 2005. * * * ladies and gentlemen, i am delighted to address you once again on an occasion such as this and even more delighted to be back in this great city. with the weather you are having here, we could quite easily be experiencing an african winter a€¦ i mean summer. it is a pleasure to welcome you here and to be amongst friends such as yourselves who have shown great confidence in south africa. as many of you live in this city, and almost certainly all of you have operations in london, i think it is right and proper, as we gather here only 10 days after the attacks on london, that i express our sympathy and condolences, on behalf of the south african reserve bank, to those who have been affected. the number of many familiar faces present here today reflects both your commitment to south africa, as well as the south african reserve bank's commitment to building strong relationships with a range of financial institutions. the foreign credit facilities we seek to establish with international institutions such as yourselves are utilised from time to time, or fully drawn down over the period of the loan to supplement our foreign reserves. in this case the us $ 1, 5 billion facility is being used to prepay the us $ 1 billion dual currency term loan facility concluded in june 2003 and tranche b of the dual currency term loan facility concluded in july 2002. in the run - up to this syndicated loan, we were very encouraged to discover during our discussions that the market was more than willing to support a dual - tranche transaction, namely a three - year and a five - year tranche, at reasonable pricing. in negotiating the 2005 facility we took into account the maturity profile of the country's foreign debt, our financing strategy, as well as the desirability of re - establishing the five - year benchmark. whereas not too long ago, a five - year maturity would still have been the subject of debate, today it seems very natural for us to borrow for five years, and thus pave the way for other south african borrowers. it is therefore with great pleasure that we celebrate the successful conclusion of this syndicated loan. the loan was oversubscribed and