, if greek banks are to converge to the eu average in the 5 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches foreseeable future. if these targets are achieved, the drastic reduction of the high stock of npls will have a major effect on economic activity and productivity, through two channels : ( a ) an increase in loan supply ; and ( b ) the effective restructuring of major productive sectors. according to bank of greece research, the decrease of the npl ratio would help to reduce financial risks and funding costs for banks, thus improving their internal capital generation capacity. moreover, it is estimated that a significant reduction of the npl ratio would improve core profitability on a sustainable basis. greek banks continue to accumulate loan loss reserves of about 2 % of their risk - weighted assets on average on an annual basis. these costs cannot be reduced as long as the npl ratio is around 40 %. additionally, considering the minimum capital requirements under pillar 2, there appears to be no reasonable scenario that these requirements will fall, unless there is a significant improvement on the npl front. this improvement would enable a gradual increase in loan supply and a decline in borrowing costs for businesses and households. at the same time, we can expect a reduction in business and household financial risk as the economy recovers, thus increasing the valuation of their existing assets and their collateral value, due to higher net returns on capital and real estate. as a result, households and businesses will gradually become more creditworthy, and more likely to obtain bank credit to finance their investments. ladies and gentlemen, a wide array of measures and policies has been successfully implemented so far and we are clearly in a much better position than we were in previous years. however, it cannot be stressed enough that, despite all the reforms completed to address the issue of non - performing loans, the stock of npls remains very high compared with the european average. in fact, even if the operational targets are fully attained by the end of 2021, the npl stock will continue to be significantly higher than any european average benchmark. therefore, it is of utmost importance that all relevant authorities, greek and european, take additional policy initiatives, in order to support the banking sector and address the npl problem in a decisive and systematic way. this will allow banks to focus on what really matters for the future : modern business models, finding new profitable growth opportunities and activities, exploiting digital technologies, and above all, financing the real economy. 6 / 6 bis central bankers '

best practices and adequate safeguards that allow the use of such data without impinging on individuals ’ privacy. bis central bankers ’ speeches second, we should be aware of the risk of drowning in a sea of data. as nobel laureate herbert simon put it : ‘ a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention ’. the rather obvious characteristic of micro data is their size : micro data by construction are an overwhelming amount of information. it is important to look not only at the benefits of micro but also at the risks for policy makers. the risk is that policy makers are bombarded with too many numbers and, as a result, decision making is delayed. a simple example can elaborate this point. consider one of the key variables monetary policy monitors, m3 growth. the aggregate data on m3 is just one number or one time series, say 12 monthly observations. what are the corresponding micro data? one possible disaggregation of the aggregate is to look at the 6, 000 numbers describing the evolution of specific types of deposits in every single credit institution. what can policy makers do when confronted with, say, 6, 000 numbers? not much. perhaps they will set up a task force to examine the data and come back with a report in a month or two. it is important to note that policy makers do not and should not really use micro data. consider, for example, the micro data collected through the household consumption and finance survey i have mentioned before. are policy makers supposed to dig into these mass of data? of course not. the idea is to channel these data into statistical models that can produce interesting and useful summary statistics and uncover relationships which are important for policy success. policy makers should ask to see a picture of the whole forest, not a list of trees and should transfer to statisticians and economists the task of developing models and summary statistics that will follow developments and provide answers to their policy concerns. in order then not to lose sight of the forest, economists and statisticians must have clever tools that allow the proper manipulation of the micro data. policy makers must demand useful information squeezed out of the micro data so as to gain a better insight on the aggregate data. is m3 growth for real, or just the artifact of regulatory arbitrage? what is driving its growth? is it a widespread phenomenon or a few special outliers? what is behind a surge in credit? a few large corporations or many smes? the point is that statisticians have their work cut