individually - tailored support to address the issues they are experiencing. lessons from the global financial crisis have shown that temporary forbearance can assist borrowers to return to full repayment if their income has reduced temporarily but is not effective in addressing more permanent income shocks. in the past we have also seen that lenders may be incentivised to rely excessively on temporary forbearance measures which may not be in the borrowers ’ best interests over the longer term. one important lesson from the previous crisis is for early engagement between borrower and lender to prevent the build - up of arrears. in response to the move to level 5 restrictions, we note the statement made by the bpfi that lenders are prepared to offer appropriate support to those borrowers who need it. for our part, we continue to engage with the bpfi and with lenders. our clear expectation is that lenders engage effectively and sympathetically with distressed borrowers – in line with the code of conduct on mortgage arrears, the consumer protection code and regulations for firms lending to smes – to deliver appropriate and sustainable solutions and facilitate as many of them as possible to return to repaying their debt. in particular, in the current environment we expect lenders to adopt interim measures to support borrowers experiencing temporary income shocks when the financial position of the borrower is not yet assessed or where more permanent solutions are being determined. insurance issues turning to insurance, last month we concluded the first phase of our review of differential pricing in the private car and home insurance markets. the aim of the review is to establish the extent to which differential pricing is in use within these markets and to determine how firms are utilising the practice and whether it is in line with the consumer protection code. the first phase of the review identified a number of weaknesses that we have communicated to insurance firms. we are planning to release the interim results of our work by the end of this year but it will be necessary to complete all phases before setting out firm conclusions from the review. i anticipate that to happen by the middle of next year. on business interruption insurance, we published our supervisory framework in august. our aim 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches is to seek the early identification and resolution of issues which have the potential to cause customer harm and establish clarity for affected businesses as quickly as possible. some business interruption insurance policies do provide cover for the circumstances of interruption related to the outbreak of covid - 19.

of the single market could only be enjoyed if the single market was complemented by a single currency. in 1992, the maastricht treaty set out a number of economic convergence criteria for the completion of emu. in may 1998, eleven eu member states were deemed to have met these price stability, public finance, interest rate, and exchange rate criteria and they proceeded to participate in the adoption of the euro as their single currency. the speed of nominal convergence of the economic performance of these member states in such a short period of time was very impressive. this occurred against a background of a crisis in the ems that subsequently led to a substantial widening of the fluctuation margins for the bilateral ems central rates. the fact that convergence occurred relatively quickly after such a turbulent episode was indicative of not only the political will to complete the monetary union project but also the flexibility of member state economies. 3. the ecb ’ s monetary policy strategy the monetary policy strategy of the ecb comprises the following components : • a quantitative definition of price stability ; • a medium - term orientation ; • a comprehensive analytical framework, based on a two pillar approach. to begin with, let me discuss the quantitative definition of price stability, which currently the governing council defines as a euro - wide inflation rate of below but close to 2 per cent. one of the primary reasons for adopting a quantitative definition of price stability was to anchor inflation expectations for the euro area. there are, however, other benefits associated with an explicit quantitative definition of price stability. it enhances transparency and facilitates the ecb in holding itself accountable for achieving its mandated price stability objective. a different, less specific definition of price stability could have led to uncertainty among economic agents, which in turn could have led to higher inflation expectations, higher market interest rates and increased risk premia. indeed, the stability of market interest rates during the euro changeover period is testament to the success of the ecb ’ s strategy. the second aspect of the ecb ’ s monetary policy strategy is its medium - term orientation, whereby the quantitative definition of price stability is to be achieved over the medium term. this medium - term orientation reflects the fact that prices can be volatile in the short run for reasons outside the control of the ecb, or indeed any central bank, such as changes in indirect taxes and shocks to commodity prices, especially oil prices. it would therefore be sub - optimal for a central bank to stick rigidly to its inflation objective over very short - term horizons