. the financial centre of frankfurt is actually a bit of a male bastion. if you look out of the window here, in the towers – deutsche bank, commerzbank – the men have the final say. but in banking supervision there are an astonishingly large number of women. for example, daniele nouy, the new chief bank supervisor, elke konig, the president of the federal financial supervisory authority ( bafin ), and, of course, you yourself. are women better at keeping an eye on banks? yes, well, i would say it ’ s a tough job, and that ’ s something to which we are suited. so, would the financial crisis not have happened with women charge? lautenschlager : that ’ s a tough question. i don ’ t like thinking in such boxes. there are men who are risk - takers and there are women who are risk - takers, and there are also much less risky business activities that both men and women pursue. so, please, don ’ t think in terms of pigeon holes. however, you once said you could imagine that, with the start of the new banking supervision, there could also be a new european supervisory culture? yes. bis central bankers ’ speeches what are we to understand by that? that that is what i would like to hope. that is what i expect. and we have been working towards it for months. so, what ’ s new about this culture? well, this supervisory culture will at last bring together the experience, the knowledge, of 19 different supervisory authorities – in fact it ’ s actually 28 when you consider that we currently have 28 countries represented among our staff. it will at last incorporate the lessons of the crisis. it will ensure that, through a fusion of these different traditions, we create better supervision using the best practices that we will devise from these different supervisory cultures. and this supervisory culture will most certainly be able to assert itself. it will be in direct contact with the credit institutions, very close to the bank, challenging the bank in its valuations and detecting risks at an early stage, and then also taking action. it will not simply collect and evaluate information, but will also go on to do something. so, how well prepared are the large european banks for this supervision? we hear that deutsche bank has already obtained a lot of capital and so on. what would you say? are they well prepared? well, the capital has more to

do with whether one is prepared for the health check. in that regard, i would say that some have done their homework. since july 2013, more than €140 billion has been added in additional capital or by reducing business etc. that is quite a sum. but supervision is not just this health check. instead, it concerns the fact that, as a bank, i would have to adjust to a new supervisor. what supervisory culture does it have? how tough is it? how seriously does it take certain things? how quickly will it actually want to see deficiencies corrected etc? and that is what the banks are preparing themselves for. and, finally, it also concerns the fact that banks are now going to have to do everything in english and not in german. while we ’ re discussing the health check – this time it ’ s a bit different than in the past. you are first conducting an inspection of the banks ’ balance sheets. why? well, the stress tests which we have seen so far were applied to the valuations made by the banks themselves for their operations, that is to say for the individual contracts, for the individual transactions. i would put a question mark over whether those valuations were occasionally a bit too positive, whether, ultimately, the starting position to which the stress was applied – assuming more or less that an economic crisis was developing and looking at how the value of these transactions developed – was too positive. therefore, this time, we have looked at the most significant, most risky transactions of the banks and gained an impression of the valuation standards. we have also valued individual transactions ourselves in order to see where we might have to reduce the valuation of individual transactions and then apply stress to this reduced value. will banks fail? i cannot tell you that yet. we are right in the middle of the quality assurance. and, i ’ m afraid, much as i really like deutschlandfunk, i have no insider knowledge for you. but there is a study which says that, of the 130 banks, there are nine or ten that probably won ’ t manage it? well, of course, the studies don ’ t have our insights. and i am not going to pass them on. but, speaking generally, without mentioning individual banks or figures, how good are the german banks? i ’ m not going to tell you that either. you can ask me as many times as you like. we will announce the results in the second half of october this year, and