and scope of financial deregulation at the national or regional level led to regulatory arbitrage by financial market players. the pendulum has been swinging back since the onset of the financial crisis. when the leaders of the g20 pledged in november 2008 “ to strengthen our regulatory regimes, prudential oversight, and risk management, and ensure that all financial markets, products and participants are regulated or subject to oversight ”, this was the starting shot for a comprehensive global regulatory reform agenda. bis central bankers ’ speeches almost five years later, a great deal has been done. many issues have been tackled and reforms have already been implemented. yet a great deal still needs to be done and we have to maintain political interest in a stable financial system with appropriate regulation. the key objective of financial regulation should be to make the financial system more stable and therefore more resistant to shocks. on the other hand, regulation must maintain the financial system ’ s ability to fulfil its servicing role for the real economy appropriately. in this regard, i agree with robert shiller, who believes in the value added of the financial system. in his most recent book he writes : “ finance, despite its flaws and excesses, is a force that potentially can help us to create a better, more prosperous and more equitable society. ” hence, financial regulation is about addressing market failure and not about abolishing the market mechanism. 3. strengthening the principle of liability in order to achieve the key objective of a more stable and shock - resistant financial system, it is essential to strengthen the principle of individual responsibility and of liability. the principle of liability is one of the basic principles for the functioning of market economies, and it should clearly also apply to the financial system. essentially, it says that those who have the benefit should also bear the costs. one of the root causes of the financial crisis is that, in the financial sector, the principle of liability was too weakly implemented. however, lacking liability creates incentives to take excessive risks. the problem of banks that are “ too big to fail ” may illustrate this. ultimately, systemic importance infringes the principle of liability. excessively risky transactions go unpunished because those who have the benefit do not bear the costs. the decisive question now is how the principle of liability could be strengthened by regulatory measures. • in the case of banks, higher capital requirements are the favourable and chosen way. they enable banks to shoulder greater losses by themselves, and thus shift the risk back to

deeper our intervention will have to be. and we shouldn ’ t expect the planet to make things any easier for us. quite specifically, this means we ’ ll need to be ambitious – far more ambitious than before. and we ’ ll need to take a systemic view of the matter in hand. every area of the economy will need to adjust by correctly pricing the externalities of climate change and internalising them. and those adjustments mean more than simply trimming our co2 emissions. they will transform the entire way in which we do business and affect the path along which the economy and society are progressing. specifically, i see three control loops in the economy which can be used to tackle climate change. first, the general issue of the green energy of the future – this is an area in which we have already come a long way. second, the matter of green transport systems – regrettably, progress is still very vague here. and the third climate change challenge is sustainable and green nutrition – this is a topic where we still do not have many robust projections about how developments could play out. 1 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches there is no doubt that the financial sector is also affected in every one of these control loops. banks and savings banks, in their capacity as providers of credit for the real economy, will not be left unscathed by the impending greening process in the economy. and that brings us to the subject of our symposium here today and to the topic of my opening speech. i imagine you will all be more or less familiar with the term " green finance ". in essence, it ’ s about the way in which the financial sector responds to climate change, and how it can help mitigate its impact and promote ecological sustainability – for instance, by channelling funding into environmentally friendly technologies and economic sectors – while also capitalising on their growth. for me, green finance is more than anything " patient finance ", if you will – a financial world which looks primarily at the long - term repercussions of its actions. so it ’ s nothing less than a paradigm shift. will we succeed in overcoming short - term thinking? will we succeed in prioritising long - term investment over short - run trading opportunities? don ’ t we want to be " buy and hold " shareholders rather than high - frequency traders? today ’ s event aims to raise awareness about all these questions. but there is at least one other aspect which is of paramount importance, and especially so