example, reports on y2k surveys of supervisors and regulators being undertaken by the basle committee on banking supervision and by the international organization of securities commissions are planned to be made available on the joint year 2000 council web site. public papers produced by the joint year 2000 council will also be available on the web site. a listing of international conferences and seminars related to y2k will be posted on the web site, together with links to other y2k web sites and documents. at this stage, each member of the joint year 2000 council is in the process of finalizing the country page for its respective country. last week, i wrote to every contact provided by the web pages of the joint year 2000 council can be reached at the web site of the bank for international settlements ( www. bis. org ). these pages will also be registered under the name jy2kcouncil. org in the near future. the four sponsoring organizations ( almost 600 contacts in over 170 countries ), asking for assistance in coordinating the development of their country page. this also provided a further opportunity to raise the awareness of the year 2000 problem at the most senior levels of financial market authorities and supervisors in countries around the world. through the effort to develop this web site and other similar efforts by the joint year 2000 council, i believe we can succeed at keeping the awareness of the issue at a very high level within the global financial supervisory community. efforts to improve preparedness of course, awareness of the year 2000 problem is only the first step in addressing it. global efforts to prepare for year 2000 vary widely, and many countries believe that more coordinated national action will be necessary to tackle the problem as effectively as possible. at our second meeting of the joint year 2000 council, a strong consensus emerged that a national government body in each country could play a helpful role in coordinating preparations for y2k. while the council did not have a strong view on what particular form or what specific authority such a body would require in each specific country, the council members felt strongly that involvement in some fashion by the national government could be beneficial. accordingly, the joint year 2000 council plans to issue a statement in the near future providing general support for the concept of a national - level coordinating body for the y2k problem. in the united states, of course, the white house has established the president ’ s council on year 2000 conversion, headed by john koskinen. this effort, as well as those of this committee under

general, and the fed in particular, play an important role. we seek to be good global stewards. as you know, we ’ ve taken a number of steps to increase transparency and to improve the clarity of our communications. this includes regular press conferences by the fed chair following fomc meetings ; the publishing of growth, inflation and short - term rate forecasts of fomc participants ; and a concerted attempt to lay out the guideposts that the fomc will look at to assess progress toward our mandate. we are, though, still learning how to more effectively communicate, especially given our new and expanded set of policy instruments. a second area in which we can and must collectively do better is safeguarding global financial stability. simply put, we failed to act both early enough and decisively enough to stem the credit excesses that spawned the financial crisis and the great recession. while the u. s. was not alone in this shortcoming, given our position in the global financial system we especially should have done a better job. we ’ ve taken important steps through new legislative mandates and a broader effort to rethink our regulatory and supervisory framework. in particular, systemically important banking organizations must now hold higher amounts of capital and liquidity that are better aligned with their risk profiles and the official sector is making progress in ensuring no financial firm will be too - big - to - fail. although this remains very much a work in progress, these efforts should help us to avoid repeating the mistakes of the recent past, and enable us to be more proactive in mitigating potential future vulnerabilities. of course, we at the fed are not alone here. since the recent financial crisis, central banks worldwide have been engaged in a broad rethinking of how to better fulfill their mandates. let me close with a final thought. the largest problems that countries create for others often emanate from getting policy wrong domestically. economic recession or financial instability at home is often quickly exported abroad. equally important, growth and stability abroad makes all our jobs at home easier. this illustrates the externalities in the work we do, with more effective fulfillment of our domestic mandates helping to bring us collectively to a better place. thank you for your kind attention. bis central bankers ’ speeches