– it must be right that we exempt small firms from bail - in debt, but this inevitably leads to a moment when successful firms stop being small and need to start issuing. second, and related to the first, although we have in my view been pretty successful in encouraging new entrants, it is so far notable that no small bank has successfully become a large bank. perhaps this will change through time, and it may have much more to do with behavioural stickiness of current accounts than regulation, but it would be complacent to be relaxed about it. as an aside, there may be lessons to be learned here from the general insurance market : it is notable that some of today ’ s largest gi firms started as small challengers within the last 20 - 30 years. of course one way firms can get larger is through mergers and acquisitions, for which pra approval of the ‘ change in control ’ is required. a natural question to ask is how our secondary competition objective plays into these situations. the law is actually very clear on this point : when considering whether to approve the change in control, we are required to disregard the competitive impact and to limit ourselves to a consideration of the appropriateness of the new controller. assessing the impact on competition falls instead to the cma. third, there is a tension for us arising from the efforts we make to encourage new and smaller players. my involvement in this line of work really began with the collapse of the largest, and apparently well - diversified, bank in the world right here in the uk. and i have been involved in and observed numerous other episodes of big banks getting into trouble. so i will never believe that there is something inherently safer about larger banks. but nor do i believe the opposite, and there are plenty of examples of smaller banks getting into all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / publications / pages / speeches / default. aspx trouble, in some of which i ’ ve been heavily involved. so it is perfectly natural that with our safety and soundness objective in mind we should take a close interest in small firms as well as large, particularly when they are fast - growing, heavy users of central bank funding schemes, concentrated in higher - risk niches and / or untested in a downturn. bluntly i think we wouldn ’ t be doing our job if we didn ’ t do this – but at the same time the competition objective requires us to ride

michelle w bowman : reflections on 2024 - monetary policy, economic performance and lessons for banking regulation speech by ms michelle w bowman, member of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, at the california bankers association 2025 bank presidents seminar, laguna beach, california, 9 january 2025. * * * let me begin by recognizing the devastation caused by the fires in the los angeles area. my thoughts and prayers are with those who have been impacted and the first responders who are fighting to bring the fires under control. i would like to thank the california bankers association for the invitation to speak to you today. 1 i appreciate the opportunity to reflect on the past year, on both the path of monetary policy and the economy and on how this past experience can inform the bank regulatory agenda as we look ahead to a new year. in light of the policy decisions at the last few federal open market committee ( fomc ) meetings, i will begin by providing some perspective on my votes and then discuss my current views on the economy and monetary policy. update on the most recent fomc meetings at the september meeting last year, the fomc voted to lower the target range for the federal funds rate, for the first time since we began tightening monetary policy to combat inflation, by 1 / 2 percentage point to 4 - 3 / 4 to 5 percent. although i was unable to support such a large cut at that time, i did agree with the committee's assessment that it was appropriate to begin the process of recalibrating policy to reflect the progress in both lowering inflation and cooling the labor market since the middle of 2023. my dissent favored a smaller initial cut to begin the recalibration process and was the first fomc dissent by a board member in nearly 20 years. i explained my reasoning in a statement published after the meeting that noted that moving the policy rate down too quickly would carry the risk of unnecessarily stoking demand and potentially reigniting inflationary pressures. in addition, since inflation continues to hover well above our 2 percent goal, there was a real risk that the committee's large policy action could be interpreted as a premature declaration of victory on our price - stability mandate. at both our november and december meetings, the committee lowered the target range for the federal funds rate by 1 / 4 percentage point, bringing it to 4 - 1 / 4 to 4 - 1 / 2 percent. i supported the december policy action because, in