bankers with an opportunity to hear federal reserve staff discuss recent policy initiatives and issues that examiners are encountering in the field. in addition, the federal reserve bank of san francisco hosts consumer compliance webinars, and the federal reserve bank of philadelphia publishes a quarterly overview of consumer compliance issues that allows federal reserve staff to address questions from banks. 3 we are exploring options for building on these initiatives. it is critical to keep the communications channels open if supervisors and banks are to work together constructively. the regulation and supervision of community banks bank supervision requires a delicate balance – particularly now. the weak economy, together with loose lending standards in the past, has put pressure on the entire banking industry, including community banks. to protect banks from new problems down the road, and to safeguard the deposit insurance fund, supervisors must insist on high standards for lending, risk management, and governance. at the same time, it is important for banks, for their communities, and for the national economy that banks lend to creditworthy borrowers. lending to creditworthy borrowers, after all, is how banks earn profits. we also know that supervision imposes costs on institutions, and we recognize that new regulations and supervisory requirements may impose disproportionate costs on community for more information, see the federal reserve board ’ s webpage “ community depository institutions advisory council. ” for the purposes of the federal reserve ’ s supervisory programs, regional banking organizations generally are considered to be those banks and bank holding companies ( including savings and loan holding companies ) with total consolidated assets between $ 10 billion and $ 50 billion. for archived webinars and publications as well as announcements about future events, see the federal reserve bank of philadelphia ’ s webpage “ consumer compliance outlook. ” bis central bankers ’ speeches banks. thus, we take quite seriously the importance of evaluating the costs and benefits of new rules. supervision is conducted through the federal reserve ’ s decentralized structure of 12 regional reserve banks, which helps us tailor our examinations and supervision to the size, complexity, risk profile, and business model of each institution. community bankers tell us repeatedly that they are concerned about the changing regulatory environment. one particular worry is the implementation of the dodd - frank wall street reform and consumer protection act ( dodd - frank act ). it is important to emphasize that the congress enacted the dodd - frank act largely in response to the “ too big to fail ” problem, and that most of its provisions – regarding, for example, capital

. 1 that said, wage growth has yet to fully return to levels consistent with 2 percent price inflation on a sustained basis. that provides a nice segue to the topic of inflation, the other half of our mandate. inflation has declined significantly since mid - 2022. this drop has been broad - based, with inflation lower in all major categories - food, energy, goods, and services. the 12month percent change in the personal consumption expenditures ( pce ) price index has continued to decline, falling from its 40 - year high of above 7 percent in mid - 2022 to 2. 7 percent in the latest reading. the decline in inflation has benefited from a reduction in demand and supply imbalances, both here in the u. s. and internationally. indeed, this phenomenon is not unique to the united states. canada, the united kingdom, and the european economies experienced historically high inflation and have similarly seen relatively rapid declines in inflation as well. in fact, based on the harmonized index of consumer prices, the inflation rates in the euro area, sweden, the 2 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches united kingdom, and the united states are all now nearly the same. while every region has its own set of conditions, global factors affected inflation in advanced economies around the world. 2 even with this good news, inflation in the united states remains too high, and in recent months there has been a lack of further progress toward our 2 percent goal. extracting the signal from the noise when it comes to inflation readings is especially challenging now, since the economy is still feeling the aftershocks of the supply chain issues and high inflation following the pandemic and the war in ukraine. i'll point to a few areas of research developed by my colleagues at the new york fed to better understand the data. the most recent reading of our multivariate core trend ( mct ) inflation measure was 2. 6 percent in march, about the same level as it was in december, and down nearly 3 percentage points from its peak in june 2022. 3 furthermore, measures of inflation expectations from our survey of consumer expectations have remained broadly stable and are generally in line with their precovid ranges at all horizons. 4 and global supply chain issues have mostly receded, according to both our global supply chain pressure index and evidence from our regional surveys of businesses. 5, 6 overall, i see some of the recent inflation readings as representing mostly a reversal of the unusually low readings