, a practice that is to continue under the new monetary policy council. the bank of canada, too, has taken steps to increase the level of transparency in its markets. it now publishes a semiannual monetary policy report and sets an explicit level for its bank rate. national governments also have contributed to greater transparency in monetary policy by increasingly recognizing the value of endowing their central banks with greater independence. moves of this sort have occurred in several western european countries and many emerging market economies, especially in latin america, over the past several years. a second area where recent developments have resulted in improved transparency in the foreign exchange market is information technology. easy and inexpensive access to a vast array of information has changed the way financial markets absorb new data. most of us in this room sit in offices or trading rooms with keyboard access to data, analysis, and news that once took huge resources to manage. and, neither bankers nor traders have a monopoly on this capacity - - corporate treasurers and institutional investors can pull up most of the same screens we can. at one time, a presence in a local market and access to early newspapers could provide a trading advantage for a large market maker. today, news from that market is available electronically worldwide with almost no lag. information is cheaper and easier to come by than ever before. the result? a global market that reacts quickly and efficiently to new data, and participants who have more time to analyze information because they need to spend less time gathering it. one consequence of this improved transparency in information technology is that information gets reflected in asset prices more quickly and more smoothly than ever before. a closely related development that has also contributed to increased transparency in the foreign exchange market has been the rapid evolution of the price discovery process in the past several years. electronic brokerage and electronic interbank dealing systems have evolved that have smoothed the dissemination of current pricing and improved market liquidity. whereas truly competitive pricing was once the province of only the largest market makers, smaller interbank dealers - - and even some foreign exchange end - users - - now also have access to narrow bid - ask spreads. the result so far has been a deeper market and, again, a more level playing field for all market participants, with pricing no longer dominated by a few large players. the final area in which recent innovations have improved market transparency is risk management. while we are far from being able to rest on our laurels, there is no denying the fact that financial institutions, their customers, and their

general terms because it very much depends on each ccp. they have different business models, face different risks and evolve in different environments. so i personally wish we could move gradually to an approach that is closer to the one we have in banking supervision, if we use stress testing to inform supervisory requirements. i would be very much in favour of the concept of a “ pillar ii ” for ccps. we would have pillar i requirements that would be standardised across ccps, and we would have a pillar ii, which would be decided by the competent supervisor and informed by the outcome of the stress test. to me, that ’ s the way forward. it will take some time to take shape and, in the meantime, we should restrain ourselves from approaches to financial resources of ccps that are too simplistic and standardised. bis central bankers ’ speeches