long term infrastructural projects because of the higher capital charge required to hold these assets on their books. more specifically, many european banks, which were very active in infrastructural financing in asia in the past decade, have reduced their exposures in this area and will continue to do so in the future. so many infrastructural projects in asia are now finding it increasingly difficult to secure the necessary finance. at the same time, many bankers and fund managers have said that there is still ample supply of funds looking for investment opportunities, but lending or investments in asia ’ s infrastructure has been greatly hampered by the shortage of “ bankable ” projects. so on the one hand asia has a huge funding need for infrastructural projects but on the other bankers and investors sitting on huge amounts of savings complain that they cannot find sufficient “ bankable ” projects. clearly there is a big gap here. there are many reasons why such gap exists, involving factors relating to legal, governance and political risks for investing in asia ’ s infrastructure. whatever the reasons, we must endeavour to find a workable solution to narrow the gap or else it will significantly impair asia ’ s growth potential as well as constraining the development of asia ’ s financial markets. 7. in conclusion, i would say that today ’ s conference is very timely as it will discuss the key challenges facing asia ’ s finance in the future. asia is now at a crossroad and we must work together to choose the right path. i have no doubt that this conference will contribute useful insights and advice on this very important subject. thank you. bis central bankers ’ speeches

write - offs and sales of loans. the pandemic and the subsequent sharp deterioration of the economic environment was the ‘ perfect storm ’ for the european banks, affecting them across most business segments and disrupting significantly their operational capacity. the national and european authorities acted swiftly introducing unprecedented measures in order to mitigate the impact from the pandemic. these measures were in the right direction and alleviated the short - term pressure on the liquidity and capital positions of banks. however, according to the experience from past crises, such an acute economic recession is highly probable to impair the asset quality of lenders. today, just a few months after the lockdown, it is still too early to assess the impact from the pandemic on european banks, for several reasons : 1. first, there is still uncertainty about the medical factor, while there is a wide range of projections for economic activity, a key determinant of banks ’ credit losses. 2. second, there is usually a time lag between worsening macro variables and the emergence of new npls. the loan moratoria and the state support measures increase this time lag but at the same time contribute to higher uncertainty in the medium term. for example, the deferral of loan amortisation payments is an effective measure to address borrowers ’ shortterm difficulties caused by the pandemic, but could potentially create a ‘ cliff effect ’ upon the termination of measures. 3. third, some banks that were already in a fragile position before the pandemic, may have to struggle more than their peers to navigate through the crisis. for greek banks, even during the pandemic, many indicators develop in a benign way : liquidity deposits, pre - provision income, cost to income ratio etc. however, a potential creation of a ‘ new generation ’ of non - performing loans could hamper their efforts to clean up their balance sheets. greek banks are already in the process of making use of the hellenic asset protection scheme and offloading part of their delinquent loans. already, one systemic bank completed a securitisation transaction under the ‘ hercules ’ scheme and we expect that the other three systemic banks will accelerate their efforts to make use of the scheme by the end of the year or early in 2021. at the same time, banks will benefit from the reforms in the institutional framework for private debt management already made ( e. g. acceleration of liquidation of banks ’ collateral via electronic auctions,