the lending rates for firms, the pass - through of tighter monetary policy to overall financing conditions has been strong. higher bank funding costs translated into a strong increase in lending rates to non - financial corporations, although spreads relative to risk - free rates were somewhat compressed. lending rates started to increase in june 2022 ahead of the first ecb rate hike. compared with past hiking cycles, the current campaign has seen the most prominent lending rate increase in the euro area – in terms of both speed and magnitude, also reflecting the unprecedented speed and magnitude of policy rate increases ( chart 4 ). at the same time, loan volumes in the euro area have weakened sharply starting from the end of 2022. credit flows have remained stagnant on aggregate for loans and bonds, with some substitution between the two sources of financing ( chart 5, left panel ). the weakening in credit has been stronger than in past hiking cycles and, while this is partly driven by the unprecedented pace of policy tightening, a modelbased simulation confirms that loan volumes turned around faster than what would have been expected based on historical regularities, given the path of monetary policy hikes since december 2021 ( chart 5, right panel ). chart 4 lending rates to firms across hiking cycles ( x - axis : years ; y - axis : cumulative changes in percentage points ) sources : ecb ( mir ) and ecb calculations. notes : the ecb relevant policy rate is the lombard rate up to december 1998, the mro up to may 2014 and the dfr thereafter. t marks the start of each hiking cycle. the latest observations are may 2023 for lending rates and june 2023 for the policy rate. chart 5 firm debt financing flows and bvar simulation of changes in lending volumes ( left panel : average monthly flows in eur billions ; right panel : x - axis : years, y - axis : growth rate of credit in deviation from its growth rate at the start of the cycle ( t ), in percentage points ) sources : ecb ( bsi, csec ) and ecb calculations. notes : mfi loans are adjusted for sales and securitisation and cash pooling. the seasonal adjustment of the net issuance of debt securities is not official. starting months correspond to the month immediately preceding the first hike or explicit announcement of the hike of the cycle. the dotted line corresponds to a bvar counterfactual for lending volumes, taking december 2021 as the last observation and projecting volumes conditional on the path

muhammad bin ibrahim : de - risking asia - the growing role of selfinsurance keynote address by mr muhammad bin ibrahim, governor of the central bank of malaysia ( bank negara malaysia ), at the asian captive conference 2017 " de - risking asia : the growing role of self - insurance " kuala lumpur, 16 august 2017. * * * it is probably fair to say that captives have had, at best, an uneasy relationship with regulators. captive insurance did not get off on the right foot with regulators. in the early days of the modern captive, efforts to regulate captives were mostly ill - suited to the nature of the captive business. prudential and market conduct regulations intended for the protection of the general public were applied equally to traditional and captive insurers. this reduces the cost savings that captives were set up to achieve. in response, captives relocated and domiciled in jurisdictions with less onerous regulations, which on hindsight is an onerous consequence. fast - forward half a century, captives are have an entrenched reputation for being tax evasion vehicles of large corporations. offshore centers that are hosts to many captives have come under greater scrutiny, with stronger tax and regulatory regimes back on the cards to haunt the industry. we seem to have come full circle, and possibly still without a clear grasp of how captives, as well as the economics in which they operate, have fundamentally changed over time. this raises a risk that the captive and regulatory community may yet find itself caught wrong - footed ( again! ), with potentially higher stakes at hand. i thought that it is worth talking about the role of captives in the shifting sands of business in the 21st century. i would like to share some thoughts on what the future holds for captives as we contemplate the changes taking place around us. responding to risk in the 21st century – the role of captives major risk events often strike without prejudice. typhoons do not discriminate in the havoc that they wreak. terrorist attacks affect innocent bystanders who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. organizations across the globe, no matter what their purpose, have been targeted by cyber - attacks. from the national health service in the uk, to schools in china, to chocolate factories in australia, organizations large and small, for - profit or non - profit, have borne the brunt of ransomware attacks. thanks to globalization and advancements in technology, the impact on businesses is also more far - reaching and larger in