institutions, with pan - european banks playing an important role in private risk - sharing. for this to happen, it is essential to complete the banking union. in this union, both supervisory responsibility and the fiscal backstop need to be at european level to underpin confidence in the area - wide financial system in a sustainable way. just as necessary is the establishment of a european deposit insurance scheme. the current situation, where supervision is common, but the consequences of any bank failures are still predominantly national, should not last. in this incomplete framework, national considerations inevitably continue to affect supervisory decisions. this acts as a disincentive for banks to become more european. concrete examples include a lack of fungibility of liquidity or capital. the fact that the euro area is not considered as a single jurisdiction may result in the application of higher capital buffers to global systemically important banks in the region. the banking union is both an objective and a process of fundamental structural change in the eu financial architecture. the next steps are clearly set out in the ecofin roadmap to complete the banking union. agreement on an ambitious timetable for its implementation is now urgently needed. 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches 1 see, for example, oecd economic outlook, volume 2016, issue 2 and european commission, european economic forecast, winter 2017. 2 see the ecb ’ s euro area bank lending survey, april 2017, and the ecb ’ s survey on the access to finance of enterprises in the euro area, october 2016 to march 2017. 3 for more details on the impact of the tltros, see “ the targeted longer - term refinancing operations : an overview of the take - up and their impact on bank intermediation ”, economic bulletin, issue 3, box 5, ecb, 2017. 4 for further discussion, see “ recent wage trends in the euro area ”, economic bulletin, issue 3, box 2, ecb 2016. 5 see, for example, “ wage dynamics amid high euro - area unemployment ”, deutsche bundesbank monthly report, december 2016. 6 see financial integration in europe, european central bank, may 2017 and european financial stability and integration review 2017, european commission, may 2017. 4 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches

glenn stevens : latest economic and financial developments in australia opening statement by mr glenn stevens, governor of the reserve bank of australia, to the house of representatives standing committee on economics, sydney, 24 february 2012. * * * when we last met with the committee in august, we had entered a period of heightened uncertainty about the global economy and financial system. the investment community was focusing increasingly on the high levels of public debt in major countries, and especially on the situation in the euro area, where budgetary pressures, banking pressures and competitiveness issues within the single currency area make for a very difficult set of problems. there was considerable instability in markets. but our view at that time – tentatively – was that we were not witnessing a repeat of the events of late 2008. admittedly, the second half of 2011 saw some very anxious moments. there was a flight from risk that pushed up borrowing costs for major countries like spain and italy, but pushed them down for countries like germany and the united states to the lowest levels for more than 50 years in spite of the fiscal challenges the us itself faces. funding markets for european banks in particular effectively closed for a few months, and for other banks became much more difficult and certainly more expensive. the palpable fear before christmas that europe was on the brink of some sort of very bad financial event has lessened over our summer. the anxiety has not gone entirely away, and nor will it for some time. but the worst has not happened. financial markets, while hardly brimming with confidence, have recovered somewhat over the past couple of months. banks are able to access term funding markets again, albeit at higher cost. high - frequency gauges of business conditions and confidence have stabilised over the past couple of months in asia and north america, and even in europe. we have not seen the very steep fall that we saw in all these indicators in late 2008. the actions of the european central bank contributed greatly to the stabilisation of financing conditions, essentially by removing, for a time, questions over the funding of european banks. the efforts of european leaders to craft a stronger framework for euro - wide governance on the fiscal side have also continued. a great deal more needs to be done to place european banks and sovereigns onto a stable footing, and to boost potential growth in europe. but progress is being made. forecasts for the global economy in 2012 have been marked lower, mainly due to the effects of the problems in the euro area. revisions to