mugur isarescu : integrated supervision opening speech by mr mugur isarescu, governor of the national bank of romania, at the seminar “ integrated supervision ”, jointly organised by the romanian financial supervisory authority and the national bank of romania, sinaia, 22 january 2014. * * * distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure for me to warmly welcome you to this seminar on integrated supervision. the newly established romanian financial supervisory authority and the national bank of romania decided to jointly organize the conference on this challenging topic that has recently come into the spotlight. i particularly want to thank our guests from the national supervisory authorities of austria, the czech republic, germany, poland, united kingdom and ireland. i also welcome the experts from the world bank, the international monetary fund and the european commission who will generously impart their knowledge to all of us. i do wish all of you a pleasant stay here in sinaia. this three days long seminar is an excellent occasion to learn, to exchange views and to generate professional ties. allow me to say a few words about where you are. this is a premise of the national bank of romania ’ s training center, situated in cumpatu district, in this lovely resort, sinaia. the name sinaia is an eponym of mount sinai. by the end of the 17th century, a group of wallachian monks, led by mihail cantacuzino, a landlord of those times, went on a pilgrimage to palestine and the sinai peninsula. they were hosted at saint catherine monastery. once returned, they established a convent quite here, in the heavily forested area, at the bottom of the carpathians. the new monastery was called sinaia, in the memory of their journey to the sinai peninsula. a century later, the first king of romania, carol i fell in love with the place and built peles castle, his summer residence. following the establishment of the peles castle a railroad connecting the capital to the king ’ s new summer residence was built. little by little, sinaia became popular among the members of the high society : they started building summer residences as well as hotels, villas. you can visit the peles castle and the sinaia monastery on friday. and now about this seminar. the topic of this seminar is integrated supervision to ensure financial stability. it relies on several conceptual layers. first of all, to understand that the frontiers among financial activities have been blurred by financial innovation and the formation

committee for financial stability. the financial supervision authority itself has to develop its conceptual and operational arms in this regard. the very organizational map of the financial supervision authority shows the attention granted to integrated supervision. thus, a directorate for financial integration is a novelty and has a prominent role to play. it is commendable that its staffing has tried to bring in highly experienced individuals. but, however experienced these people are, there is a lot they need to understand better in order to fulfil their mission. for the sake of fairness, it should be said, that integrated supervision is at the beginning in many european union member states. and even where it has a longer history, its performance is not stellar. i do hope this seminar is going to offer you the opportunity for fruitful discussions and the experience and skills you gain from here will be beneficial to all of you. this is quite a special place for such a seminar since, for eight years in a raw, we organised along with the international monetary fund a regional conference on financial stability issues. thank you and enjoy your dinner. bis central bankers ’ speeches