in nature. statistics of training practices and philosophies across a cross section of banks in india support my conclusions. i am glad to note that most institutions do follow a regimen of “ training needs analysis ”, to ascertain the specific training need and addressing that need precisely, taking care to cover as many employees as possible. on an average, 60 – 65 % of the employees are invariably covered every year under some or the other training programme, though there are also banks that post an achievement rate as high as 85 – 90 %. on the other side of the spectrum are a few banks which have been able to train not more than 37 – 40 % of their workforce in a given year. it is particularly heartening to note that training initiatives are not just confined to officer / executive staff alone but encompass all employees. there does exist an active process of delineating programmes and categorizing them as induction ( on - boarding of employees ), behavioural, functional and leadership training, which leads one to believe that banks are fully alive to the necessity of a multi - dimensional approach to training. there is a profound emphasis on development of “ soft skills ” amongst development of other skill sets. further, a follow - up to class room teaching or coaching by way of “ on the job ” training has been considered to be the most appropriate form of training by most trainers in banks. the bis central bankers ’ speeches effort to build skills on the job and the ability to apply them to practical situations is seen to be a prime training need. agreeably and also predictably, most banks have identified training gaps in the areas of credit management, risk management, agriculture programmes, marketing, and foreign exchange. these areas require an equal measure of knowledge of rules, practices and specialized skills for appraisal on one hand and an awareness of markets on the other. these are also some areas where banks have felt a dire need for training by external experts and institutions. an interesting yet compelling train of thought in banks also has “ employee superannuation trends ” as its focus with an objective to prepare more leaders in banks to take up challenges in the coming years, especially through such aspects as “ mentoring ”. elearning portals as means to top up training facilities internally has found wider currency in the training curriculum of banks. certain interesting concepts in training have also emerged in recent times as revealed by such interesting themes as “ selling skills ”, “ alternate delivery channels ”, “ product knowledge ”,

hard to predict using the standard models we normally rely on but i do believe it is our responsibility ex ante to reflect on how to avoid future negative outcomes. the nature of such outcomes will vary depending on what part of the asset market that generates the risks, the market microstructure available for sorting out a problem in an efficient manner and the extent to which monetary policy is able to counteract the risks. here we certainly can deepen our understanding of how different imbalances unwind and what the costs are. we often talk about asset markets in very general terms without going into any great detail. in this context one can argue that monetary policy is a blunt instrument and considerations of risks associated with credit and asset markets should be left to the supervisory structures in place. in principle, supervisory rules can be fine tuned towards different asset markets in a more precise way than monetary policy. if prudential rules are or become binding we are also likely to see some macroeconomic consequences of these policies. in my view it is far from obvious how much weight is to be put on monetary policy and how much on supervision. monetary policy can play a role, albeit perhaps a limited one, not the least because this will help to manage inflation expectations over the long term. furthermore, when imbalances build up monetary policy and supervision can support one another. criticism from different sides … i mentioned in the beginning that we have been criticized from many angles. thus, in the very same year that an outside review came to the conclusion that the riksbank had given too much independent weight to house price developments, other riksbank - watchers criticized us for neglecting the ongoing build - up in house prices and debt levels. some market commentators in sweden have in the past year referred to the rapidly rising house prices as a reason for increasing the repo rate at a substantially faster rate than our published interest rate forecasts. house prices have, as i mentioned in the introduction, increased by 140 per cent since 1996 ; annual changes are now in the vicinity of 8 per cent, down from around 13 per cent a year ago. as in many other countries, these developments have been the subject of much attention in the media, and calls have been made for the riksbank “ to do something about it ”. here some pedagogical challenges arise. we must explain that we do not target house prices but that we do not ignore risks associated with them. this is far from having a target for house