andreas dombret : macroprudential surveillance and statistical challenges speech by dr andreas dombret, member of the executive board of the deutsche bundesbank, at the sixth ecb statistics conference, frankfurt am main, 17 april 2012. * * * introduction ladies and gentlemen thank you for inviting me to speak to you tonight. many of the statistical challenges that are related to macroprudential surveillance have already been addressed this afternoon. allow me to offer some thoughts from the point of view of a macroprudential practitioner, who is also involved in statistics. it is a crucial aspect of macroprudential surveillance, as we see it in europe, that the macrofinancial analysts receive all the information relevant for them to do their job. from my point of view, four aspects stand out : 1. data requests must be analytically driven. 2. micro and macro - views should be reconcilable. 3. single entity and consolidated data are equally important. 4. the data gaps issue needs to stay on top of the agenda. the significance of macroprudential surveillance there is, more than ever, a strong case for mutual understanding and close ex ante coordination, because in recent years we have witnessed nothing less than a significant change in the paradigm of macroprudential surveillance. three steps can be distinguished. as a first step, in spring of 2009, an international reform agenda has been agreed upon, and the financial stability board has been assigned a key function. then, at the beginning of 2011, the european systemic risk board has taken up its work. and, as a last step, we are in the process of national macroprudential mandates being drafted in several european countries. actually, at the end of last year, the esrb released an explicit recommendation on the macro - prudential mandate of national authorities. macroprudential surveillance, at the european level, can be characterized by a threepronged approach. – firstly : a legal mandate exists for safeguarding financial stability. europe is setting standards with respect to macroprudential policy. – secondly : macroprudential surveillance pursues an indirect approach to surveillance. this means that macrofinancial analysts are entitled to receive the totality of relevant information in order to be able to deliver early warnings and clear recommendations. meanwhile, all operative, microprudential instruments remain in the hands of the relevant supervisory agencies. – thirdly : central banks are to take on additional

smartphones as the sole channel for their entire service package. as habits change and technical innovations emerge, so, too, will people expect the banking industry to evolve and adapt. there is also a growing desire among customers to use bank services whenever they want, however they want. researchers and policymakers have launched a variety of initiatives in an effort to categorise technological advances and uses and to quantify the impact on the economy and society. yet we need to keep in mind that there ’ s very little, if anything, we can say with any certainty about how financial technologies ( “ fintechs ” ) will evolve going forward. after all, the sky ’ s the limit for technology – many ideas are refined and tweaked, others are discarded. whether or not an application is worth pursuing depends in part on how well it goes down with customers, and many other developments in the market. for me, any attempt to realistically predict whether an innovative app will stand the test of time is a little like trying to predict how climate change will impact on the luneburg heath bird population ten years from now. that being said, it does no harm to say that digitalisation has unleashed an irreversible process. few of us these days shed a tear over the demise of analogue photography, bis central bankers ’ speeches typewriters or credit transfer slips. and that ’ s why all stakeholders in the banking industry would be well advised to embrace digital change, and do so sooner rather than later. i would now like to explore the challenges faced by two of the parties mainly affected by the advent of digitalisation : supervised credit institutions, and the financial supervisors and standard - setters themselves. 2. digitalisation – a challenge for traditional banks ladies and gentlemen, speaking as a banking supervisor, i would boil the challenges facing credit institutions down to a straightforward formula. the jury is still out on whether banks can cope with the wave of innovations and remain both profitable and safe in the brave new digital era. remaining profitable is a tall order for a number of reasons. first, the competitive landscape in the digital era is a more colourful, more global and faster - moving place. fintech companies touting groundbreaking, it - based business ideas are making inroads into the market. in 2014, fintech start - ups attracted a total of more than us $ 12 billion in funding worldwide. 1 the hypedup exuberance seen in the last few years and the spectre of