be refined and honed in the light of experience. from a regulatory perspective, the events at allfirst were a sharp and timely reminder of how international prudential issues and globalisation have the potential for contagion back to this country and of the importance of prudential supervision in safeguarding the interests of depositors, which is at the heart of the central bank ’ s regulatory structure. the bank has already expressed its serious concern at the failure of controls which allowed events at allfirst to unfold. i have written to the chairpersons of all credit institutions reminding them of their obligation to ensure that risks are controlled and managed to best international standards. i have also asked them to arrange for an independent verification of their institution ’ s risk management and control systems with particular emphasis on the management of the relationship between parent institutions and foreign subsidiaries. we are working with the accountancy firms and the banking industry to define more clearly the terms and scope of these examinations. the bank is continuing to work closely with the us federal reserve to finalise the investigation of the events at allfirst. of course, there are lessons to be learnt from this matter but at this point it is too early to draw any final conclusions. the bank will make whatever further adjustments it considers appropriate to its regulatory regime to reduce the likelihood of a similar incident recurring. in addition, the bank is reviewing its relationship with the regulators of parents and subsidiaries of irish authorised institutions to identify any areas which need to be strengthened in light of the allfirst affair. single regulatory authority i welcome the minister ’ s indication earlier today that the new regulatory bill will be published shortly. the bill will give flesh to the government ’ s decision last year, that the single regulatory authority would be situated within a restructured central bank. in my previous role in the department of finance, i was only too well aware of what a difficult and complex piece of legislation this proved to be in the drafting. on behalf of myself and my new colleagues in the bank, i must say that we look forward to seeing the bill published and progressed through the legislative process and also to beginning the work of implementation. this will be no small task but we will do our utmost to ensure a smooth transition, with as little disruption as possible. however, since the key concern of any customer of a financial entity must be to ensure that their assets are safe, i am satisfied that the new legislation will ensure that the system of prudential regulation and co - ordination

speech quantitative tightening : rationale and market impact speech by isabel schnabel, member of the executive board of the ecb, at the money market contact group meeting frankfurt am main, 2 march 2023 eight years ago, we launched the asset purchase programme ( app ). it was the first time the ecb employed quantitative easing ( qe ) to help secure price stability when the space for further policy rate cuts was becoming constrained by the effective lower bound. by now, there is a wealth of evidence suggesting that the app was successful in lowering long - term interest rates, stimulating economic activity and raising inflation at times when price pressures were unusually weak. as risks to medium - term price stability had increased sharply, we decided in june 2022 to end net asset purchases under the app as of july. in december, we announced that the app portfolio would decline at a measured and predictable pace as of march 2023. this became effective yesterday when we started limiting reinvestments of maturing securities. until the end of june 2023, the app portfolio will decline by €15 billion per month on average. [ 2 ] for our corporate bond portfolio, the remaining reinvestments will be tilted more strongly towards issuers with a better climate performance, in line with the goals of the paris agreement and without prejudice to our primary mandate. [ 3 ] in the second quarter of this year, the governing council will reassess the pace of app portfolio reduction. i will start my remarks today by presenting the rationale for conducting quantitative tightening ( qt ). reducing the size of our balance sheet is warranted for three reasons : first, to regain valuable policy space in an environment in which the current large volume of excess liquidity is not needed for steering short - term market interest rates ; second, to mitigate the negative side effects associated with a large central bank balance sheet and footprint in financial markets ; and third, to withdraw policy accommodation to support our intended monetary policy stance. i will then explain the effects of the reduction of our balance sheet on broader financial markets. while qt will not simply be a reversal of qe, investors anticipating balance sheet run - off are likely to have gradually reversed some of the risk premium compression induced by our asset purchases, thereby contributing to the timely return of inflation to our 2 % target. why quantitative tightening? let me start by discussing the rationale for qt in more detail. regaining policy space when excess liquidity is higher than needed the first