shown any signs of panic or confusion. the bank of albania considers that the rationale behind is the prudence shown in the recent years with respect to the banking system ’ s financial stability. the high level of resilience and the quick recovery were a consequence of a number of important decisions. by adopting the new banking law in the republic of albania and a range of other monetary policy and banking supervision - related decisions, we have aimed at firming up the macroeconomic balances further and strengthening financial stability. at the focus of the bank of albania ’ s strategy were the good governance and better risk management, improved banking activity transparency to the customer and the strengthening of internal control. this strategy peaked with a large - scale, exceptional and contemporary programme of open and constant communication with the public. i believe that the favourable liquidity and capital situation characterizing the albanian banking system on the eve of the financial crisis last fall helped to cope with the withdrawal of deposits during september - october 2008. however, the bank of albania deemed as necessary the prudent monitoring of the situation and took a number of actions, which alleviated the pressures over the banking system substantially. these actions helped to relax the liquidity situation and they were in harmony with the ecb ’ s operational response to the crisis. first, an ad - hoc task force was set up. its main responsibility was and remains the daily monitoring of each individual bank. our direct conclusion was that the analysis should consider all micro - level aspects, each and every cell of the system and indicators. second, a number of facilities were adopted for the incessant supply of the system with the required liquidity. the type of auction for the injection of liquidity changed to fixed - price auctions, the collateral base for repo agreements expanded, the use of the required reserve increased from 20 to 40 percent, and the spread between the bank of albania ’ s key interest rate and overnight loan reduced from 175 to 75 basis points. third, through a special act, the bank of albania required higher capitalization of banking activity from the banking sector, adding to the guarantee of the banking sector ’ s financial soundness. current financial system developments show that the overall situation in the banking sector has improved constantly. deposits are back to the banking system, attesting to the improved public confidence. credit to economy has also shown signs of recovery. another positive development relates to the fact that lending in the albanian lek has increased considerably. the european markets have been

david rule : managing risk in a soft market speech by mr david rule, executive director of insurance supervision of the bank of england, at the general insurance research organisation conference, dublin, 21 september 2016. * * * good morning. this is my first speech as the bank ’ s executive director for insurance supervision. since i took on this role in july, i have been trying to meet with as many chief executives and chairmen of uk insurers as possible. i have been struck by the variety of business models and strategies but one theme has dominated discussions of the risks facing insurers : the current low rate environment. for life insurers, this can create direct solvency pressures to the extent that they are not fully matched against the increasing value of their future liabilities as discount rates fall. that can also be an issue for some general insurers with long tail liabilities. more generally, low investment returns mean earnings on the “ float ” can no longer cushion a poor underwriting performance. the margin for error in the running of general insurance firms has reduced – firms have to underwrite profitably. on the positive side, this emphasises the importance of underwriting discipline. the soft market but of course the current soft market makes profitable underwriting more difficult to achieve. i am going to focus my remarks today on the wholesale london markets. although i have been told of some tentative signs of premium rates stabilising recently, they have been falling across most wholesale lines for around a decade now. for example, guy carpenter ’ s global property catastrophe rate - on - line index has reduced by more than a third since its peak in 2006. our market survey earlier this year found further year - on - year declines ( chart 1 ). looking at the possible causes of the current soft market, it is surely in part just another manifestation of the wider low return environment. the most obvious evidence is the inflow of capital to the market from institutional investors. perhaps to a greater extent than historically, insurance is interconnected with wider capital markets and market forces have driven expected returns more into line with other investment opportunities. these wider pressures may explain a squeeze on profits. but insurers should still be pricing to cover their view of risk. at the beginning of 2016 we carried out a survey that captured views on the rate adequacy of new and renewed business. the results suggested that the estimated rate adequacy of new business is, in most cases, higher than renewed business