a major role as an issuing and trading centre on the bond market, too, not least for international bonds that were not issued in the borrower ’ s home market. the outstanding volume of securities issued in the united kingdom by non - resident borrowers, primarily financial institutions, stands at around us $ 3 trillion. that ’ s the highest value worldwide, and more than a quarter of that figure is euro - denominated. on the equity market, market capitalisation on the london stock exchange is around double that on the deutsche borse, the leading continental european exchange. comparing monthly exchange trading volumes, london outstrips frankfurt by over 60 percent. around 70 percent of euro - denominated otc interest rate derivatives trading takes place in london. and an even greater percentage – some 90 percent – of these instruments are cleared there. with total assets amounting to the equivalent of around €9. 3 trillion, the british banking system is the largest in the eu. one indication of its close ties with continental europe is the fact that around 20 percent of british banks ’ balance sheet assets are denominated in euro. it ’ s no coincidence that, of the 160 foreign bank branches operating in the united kingdom, 77 are from the european economic area. banks headquartered in continental europe contribute 17 percent to british banks ’ aggregate total assets, which is slightly more than the 16 percent attributable to us banks. only roughly half of british banks ’ total assets come from british institutions. other financial market segments in which london plays a prominent role are easy to find and include funds, insurance, commodities and private equity. 2 / 9 bis central bankers'speeches essentially, the city brings the demand and supply of capital together from all over the world. these days, its distinctive role as a connecting and distributing point is of paramount importance for europe ’ s investment and financial flows. but what will the relationship between the united kingdom, or london, and continental europe look like in future once brexit has been implemented? signs are pointing to a watershed moment. many observers suggest that it will not be possible for london to remain the eu ’ s financial centre once the united kingdom has left the single market. the wall street journal wrote recently : london ’ s position as europe ’ s financial centre is definitely under threat. a fairly logical and highly probable legal consequence of brexit is that the united kingdom will probably lose its eu financial services passport, meaning that banks domiciled there would no longer have access

contraction of financial market activity following the lehman shock in september 2008. at the same time, the bank is putting forward additional measures to dispel “ chronic illness, ” namely deflation. next, i will elaborate on the bank ’ s monetary policy measures implemented since the lehman shock. a. measures to address the acute symptoms, or the rapid financial contraction immediately after the failure of lehman brothers, financial market participants throughout the world became overly cautious about their counterparts ’ creditworthiness, and there were cases where even financially sound institutions found it difficult to acquire funds. during such a rapid financial contraction, which we have described as acute symptoms, a central bank is the sole provider of liquidity. thus, from the day after the failure of lehman brothers, the bank successively injected abundant liquidity into the money market by conducting sameday funds - supplying operations. subsequently, it implemented measures to provide ample liquidity to financial markets, such as increasing the amount of outright purchases of japanese government bonds and introducing u. s. dollar funds - supplying operations against pooled collateral. in japan, it was the cp market that faced a particularly serious shortage of liquidity as market participants withdrew their funds from the market, fearing the risk of corporate failures. firms that could no longer acquire funds through cp issuance flocked to banks for financing. as banks tried to respond to the increased demand for loans, they found themselves unable to afford to supply sufficient funds for small firms or firms with low credit ratings, or for repo transactions. in this way, the liquidity shortage spread to various markets. to address this situation, the bank, in addition to increasing the frequency and size of cp repo operations, introduced outright purchases of cp as a temporary measure. this was a highly exceptional step, in that a central bank took on the credit risks of individual private firms. the underlying objective was to facilitate corporate financing and resolve the liquidity shortage in the cp market by helping to restore confidence in cp underwriting among market participants. in addition, the bank introduced a series of temporary emergency measures to facilitate corporate financing, including : ( 1 ) the easing of the rating requirement for corporate debt to be accepted as eligible collateral ; ( 2 ) the special funds - supplying operation to facilitate corporate financing ( hereafter the special operation ), through which the bank provided longer - term funds for an unlimited amount against the value of corporate debt pledged as collateral at a very low fixed interest rate ; and ( 3 ) outright purchases of corporate bonds with