was a relationship to be sure but it was all very informal ; the terms supervisor and supervised would have sounded out of place. there were no hard and fast requirements and the approach was minimalist in style. for example, through the granting of waivers on the publication of balance sheet data. originally set up in 1914 to manage difficulties in payments between countries at the start of world war one. fforde, john. the bank of england and public policy : 1941 - 1958, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1992, p. 750 a short - term debt instrument issued by a company that is guaranteed by a commercial bank, often used to facilitate trade. fforde, p. 755 all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches and yet, as in the 1890 barings episode, you can see in this activity elements which persist in supervision today. for instance, while i do not wish to offer any formal comment on the state of mark carney ’ s eyebrows, in my experience a meeting with mark is always a useful way to focus the mind. it is worth remarking that during this period there was a genuine window of opportunity to extend the boundaries of banking supervision undertaken by the bank and legislate accordingly. however, after a year ’ s negotiation, it came to nothing and instead of a banking act 1957, the banking sector would have to wait until 1979 before the bank involved itself more formally in the affairs of firms and, crucially, on a statutory basis. in the period up to the 1970s, there had been ‘ no recent case of depositors losing their money. there was little public interest in the subject and there had been no troubles that might have led to a demand for the bank ’ s help ’. this set of circumstances changed abruptly when the secondary banking crisis engulfed the city in the period 1973 - 5. in short, very rapid and uncontrolled growth in the fringe ( i. e. not primary ) banking sector came home to roost when the first oil shock hit in 1973, delivering a blow to the economic prosperity enjoyed by the uk since world war ii, reducing the value of bank assets and revealing a significant mismatch of borrowings and lending that resulted in a liquidity, and subsequently solvency, crisis. the secondary banks were especially affected, having been able to expand their balance sheets rapidly using wholesale markets, much as northern rock did just over thirty years later. the number of affected

us dollars last year. in the first two months of this year, fdis jumped by 8. 0 percent to 1. 7 billion us dollars. this underscores investor confidence in the philippines ’ long - term growth prospects. all these came on the back of a whole - of - government approach to pandemic recovery. complementing the national government ’ s recovery efforts, the central bank implemented its own covid - response measures. we ensured adequate liquidity in the financial system and helped bolster domestic economic activity. through our various response measures, the central bank has injected approximately 41. 9 billion us dollars into the financial system. that ’ s equivalent to about 11. 3 percent of gdp. the economy ’ s strong growth in the first quarter, together with the improved employment situation, provides scope for the bsp to scale back our pandemic response. we have thus begun the normalization process, guided by the inflation and growth outlook, state of public health, and domestic and global risks. in normalizing, we are mindful of the need to safeguard economic recovery on one hand and to control inflation on the other. achieving that balance requires a well - calibrated and well - communicated exit strategy to avoid substantial market volatility, reduce spillovers, and continue the recovery momentum. last may 19, we raised the key policy rate from a historic low of 2. 0 percent to 2. 25 percent. also last month, the national government already paid in full its advances from the bsp worth 54o billion pesos or approximately 10 billion us dollars. before the pandemic, the philippines ’ debt - to - gdp ratio remains manageable and much lower compared to other economies. the increase in our debt over the last two years was due in part to the massive cost of vaccination and healthcare, and also in part to the government ’ s infrastructure development agenda. under the “ build, build, build ” program, big - ticket infrastructure projects were rolled out. these are worthwhile investments intended to increase the economy ’ s capacity and boost growth ahead. if our economy continues to grow between 6 and 7 percent in the next few years, the philippines can easily outgrow its public debt. besides a manageable fiscal situation, another fundamental strength of the philippines is its healthy external accounts. our hefty gross international reserves acted as a buffer during the pandemic. a reliable source of foreign exchange is remittances from overseas filipinos. with