of them raising capital ( shares ) to reinforce their solvency. in short, the central aim of the efforts made by the bank of spain since 2009 has been to restructure the balance sheets of banks, and of savings banks in particular. spanish deposit institutions have made an enormous write - down drive to date, this effort often going unnoticed by certain observers of the spanish banking system. overall, provisions totalling €91 billion which is a 9 % of gdp, more than the cost of numerous bank crises experienced by developed countries. these major provisions have been possible because spanish banks, with their retail business and the significance of their banking franchise, were able to obtain high levels of profitability in the recent past, despite maintaining some of the lowest levels of leverage among european banking systems and having to retain a portion of such profits under the system of countercyclical provisions in place. on top of that, spanish banks have increased their capital buffer over minimum requirements by €53 billion – around 5 % of gdp – in the last three years. after the first crisis of mistrust, the greek debt crisis, the bank of spain, within the european union, led the disclosure process through the carrying out and subsequent publication of stress tests which, in a coordinated fashion, were conducted by the european supervisory authorities. spain, whose weight in the community banking system is around 8 %, was represented in the stress tests by 27 banks, 30 % of the total number analysed. this figure meant that information on 90 % of the spanish system was disclosed, compared with the minimum of 50 % required by the european authorities. all listed spanish commercial banks and all savings banks were subjected to this exercise. significantly, the exercise consisted of very tough scenarios for spain and it was carried out under the attentive eye and control of the spanish supervisor. for instance, it assumed that the spanish economy was going to undergo a second recession, with a cumulative fall in gdp of close to 3 percentage points. this was far from the market consensus and the actual figures, given that the spanish economy ended 2010 with a growth rate of 0. 6 %. further, the haircuts applied to assets were most notable : 28 % in the case of housing, 50 % in that of uncompleted housing and 62 % in that of land prices. in addition, a fall in net operating income of 40 % was assumed, one of the most severe for all the countries involved in the exercise. let me insist on

15 june 2021 remarks for afme / omfif european financial integration virtual conference thank you for inviting me to deliver this address for your conference today. the theme of the conference – european financial integration – is both a timely and timeless one. on the one hand, the pandemic has further underlined the benefits of previous initiatives related to financial integration in europe, most notably the banking union and its core components. on the other hand, the past year has also refuelled longstanding debates and discussions on the need for european further financial integration. yet a prerequisite for a successful and enduring financial integration at the european level is for europe itself to be aligned with global financial standards in order to achieve a truly global level - playing field. as such, my remarks today, which are primarily in my capacity as chair of the basel committee, will focus on the crucial importance for europe to implement the basel iii framework in a full, timely and consistent manner. financial stability is a global public good. in a world with integrated financial markets, preserving global financial stability requires global minimum standards that are applied consistently and in full by all jurisdictions. this was indeed the motivation for initial basel standards in the 1980s following the latin american debt crisis. and it remains just as important today. covid - 19 has highlighted the clear benefits and importance of having a global and prudent set of regulatory standards for banks. much has been said about how the banking system has remained broadly resilient to date, and how banks have not been “ part of the problem ” in exacerbating the economic crisis. this is in no small part due to the fact that banks entered the pandemic on a much more resilient footing that during the great financial crisis, thanks to the initial set of basel iii reforms, and the ongoing cooperation among basel committee members over the past year. in addition, the unprecedented range of fiscal and monetary measures taken by jurisdictions around the world to support the real economy have largely shielded banks to date from losses. 1 / 3 yet in order to safeguard global financial stability, it is crucial to lock - in the benefits of the outstanding basel iii reforms by implementing them in a full, timely and consistent manner. doing so would ensure that the regulatory fault lines of the global banking system – most notably with regards to excessive variability in risk - weighted asset, the gravity of which remains as important today as it was pre - pandemic – are adequately fixed. these reforms benefited from an extensive consultation