, the first – and central – pillar of the as to the nature of the vicious circle see l. f. signorini, speech for the round of meetings “ towards a european banking union ”, universita cattolica di milano, 27 march 2014. bis central bankers ’ speeches banking union, managed by yet another new authority, the single resolution board, supported by similar newly set - up national authorities. the founding principle of this new regulation is not : “ european banks are a european issue ”, but : “ european taxpayers must be protected against banking crises ”, those in their own countries and especially those in other countries. the cost of a banking crisis should no longer be borne by the taxpayer but by the saver / investor. the idea is that if a bank goes into crisis, to the point of being “ failed or likely to fail ”, and no market solution can be found, there are only two viable options : to liquidate it, i. e. to close it down permanently, stopping all operations and freezing all creditors until, years later, it is clear what remains after the liquidation of assets ; or, in case of an overt public interest in the bank ’ s survival, to bail it in, placing the burden of covering losses and reconstituting the required regulatory capital primarily on shareholders, bondholders and large depositors, i. e. those with more than 100. 000 euro ( not protected by deposit insurance schemes ). if those resources are not enough, the single resolution fund intervenes. this fund is privately financed by the contributions of all the other banks belonging to the system. the first applications of this scheme, in portugal and in italy, despite the partial form in force until the end of last year ( i. e., the burden sharing ), have shown limitations and risks. the sacrosanct principle of taxpayer protection is not being questioned, but a debate is still possible and necessary about its rigid and mechanical application, in a context of equally rigid, when not misinterpreted and analytically unsound, protection of competition in the banking market ; it is like treating banks as all other businesses, such as a supermarket or an advertising agency ; and not like companies that, while competing with each other, rely on the confidence of savers, that is an impalpable and volatile public good, the loss of which may threaten the stability of the entire financial system, thus of the entire economy

conditions and craft policy responses? hmda has three purposes. one purpose is to provide the public and government officials with data that will help show whether lenders are serving the housing needs of the neighborhoods and communities in which they are located. a second is to help government officials target public investment to promote private investment where it is needed. a third purpose is to provide data to assist in identifying possible discriminatory lending patterns and facilitate the enforcement of anti - discrimination laws, such as the equal credit opportunity act. today ’ s hearing is intended to serve as a venue to : discuss whether or not the 2002 revisions to regulation c provided useful and accurate information about the mortgage market ; gather information that will help assess the need for additional data elements or improvements ; and identify emerging issues in the mortgage market that may require additional research. as i said earlier, we are also interested in any comments on the implementation of the hmda elements of the regulatory reform legislation. we have gathered this morning an impressive array of panelists representing a spectrum of vantage points. we look forward to the comments of our panelists today and at the upcoming hearings in san francisco, chicago, and washington. this input, together with written comments submitted from the public, will be carefully considered as we consider changes to regulation c.