“ cause or effect : supervisory guidance and the collapse of commercial real estate, ” unpublished paper, board of governors of the federal reserve system division of monetary affairs, october. bis central bankers ’ speeches caps. moreover, it was apparent that banks that exceeded the criterion for construction and land development were far more likely to have failed over the period from 2007 to 2011 than were those banks that exceeded the criterion for overall cre exposures and portfolio growth. we now recognize the importance of the rapid growth criterion, which may have received less attention than the criteria for construction and overall cre lending concentrations. we intend to use the findings of this research to help clarify our communication and training for examiners and bankers around cre lending concentrations. small business lending there is probably no loan category in which community bankers ’ local knowledge and deep ties to the community are more important than small business lending. the federal reserve system has a project under way to try to improve our understanding of small business credit markets, which would of course include community banks. one challenge we have faced is that it is difficult to measure lending to small businesses precisely. for one thing, small business owners frequently tap their personal home equity, credit cards, or loans secured by commercial real estate that they own to finance their business operations, 17 which means such borrowing is not reported as small business lending. but there is also no definition of small business borrowers for the reporting of small business lending as a loan category. however, small loans to businesses – commercial and industrial loans and cre loans with original principal amounts of less than $ 1 million – are reported separately and can be used as a proxy for small business lending. using this measure, we can estimate the importance of small business lending to community banks and the importance of community banks to small businesses. as of september 2012, banks with $ 10 billion or less in assets accounted for more than 98 percent of all commercial banking institutions, but they held less than 20 percent of banking industry assets. however, they held more than half of outstanding small loans to businesses. for such institutions, these small loans to businesses represent nearly 20 percent of their total domestic lending and slightly more than 40 percent of their total commercial lending. small business lending is likely even more important to smaller banks than these statistics show because these loans are identified by the size of the loan rather than the size of the borrower. i believe it is probable that many of the larger business loans made by these smaller banks were also made to small business borrowers

carlos da silva costa : fostering cooperation between the ess and the escb opening address by mr carlos da silva costa, governor of the bank of portugal, at the bank of portugal workshop on “ fostering cooperation between the ess and the escb ”, lisbon, 25 november 2011. * * * members of the committee on monetary, financial and balance of payments statistics, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, i am very pleased that the banco de portugal can host this workshop on “ fostering cooperation between the european statistical system ( ess ) and the european system of central banks ( escb ) ” – an event meant to recognise and celebrate the 20th anniversary of the committee on monetary, financial and balance of payments statistics ( cmfb ) – and i would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you for joining us today. it is also my great pleasure to have the opportunity to briefly address you on this joyous occasion. let me start by saying that the banco de portugal thinks highly of the work that the cmfb has undertaken for the last two decades in assisting the commission to achieve close cooperation with the european union ( eu ) member states in the fields of monetary, financial and balance of payments statistics. i would like to praise specially the advisory role provided by the committee in the context of the issues raised by the application of the excessive deficit procedure ( edp ). over this 20 - year period, the cmfb acted in a very relevant fashion, accompanying the reinforcement of integration in europe, especially during the creation of the economic and monetary union. the committee was able to develop the right conditions for an effective and mutually beneficial cooperation between, on the one hand, the national statistical institutes and the eurostat and, on the other hand, the national central banks and the european central bank ( ecb ), thus fostering the interchange of statistical knowledge among these entities and contributing to bringing about efficient data collection and compilation as well as access to high - quality eu and euro area economic and financial statistics. ultimately, the work of the cmfb has contributed very positively to building further trust in official statistics. i remain convinced that, to help us coping with the predicaments that the euro area is facing at the present juncture, the cmfb still has a unique and significant role to play. indeed, four years after the beginning of the largest financial crisis since the great depression, global financial stability has yet to be secured and many policy challenges remain to be addressed : global recovery is not