from being local to regional to international. as our own regional turmoil, in combination with other crises elsewhere in the world, threatens the stability of the whole global financial system, the focus is more and more on finding international solutions rather than on merely writing out prescriptions for individual economies. one thing becomes clear from the profusion of explanations and theories that continue to appear in the newspapers and journals : we are unlikely to be able to produce a definitive and comprehensive explanation of the causes of the recent financial turmoil in the very near future. the turmoil and its effects on our region are still being played out : indeed, although encouraging signs of recovery continue to appear, the word “ recent ” in the title of our symposium may well be wishful thinking. we are still on shifting ground when it comes to finding adequate explanations and it will be some time before we can stand back and take a cool and dispassionate look at what has happened. economic historians, after all, are still debating the causes and consequences of the 1929 wall street crash. – 2 – the much more complex causality of present turmoil is enough to bewilder even the most talented economist, more especially since it includes a fair measure of irrational behaviour that falls more strictly within the province of the psychologist. the diverse effects of the turmoil are equally perplexing : they present an interesting reflection of the great variety of economic regimes that we have in the region and of their different stages in the economic cycle. the philippines, for example, though not entirely unaffected, has passed through the turmoil with considerably less damage than many other economies in the region. in contrast, its immediate neighbour, indonesia, has been set back years, if not decades. the mainland of china continues to see impressive growth under an economic system that is to a great extent insulated from the turmoil, while hong kong, the world ’ s most open economy, is passing through a sharp but hopefully also a short recession. while they vary from place to place, the effects of the current crisis are clear enough. what we see throughout the region, in differing degrees, is a sharp wealth loss, manifested in sudden capital flight, asset price collapses, and threats to currency and banking stability. these in turn have had macroeconomic consequences, such as declining or negative growth, growing unemployment, and deflation. they have, in economies as different as thailand and japan, brought to the surface severe structural weaknesses in financial systems. quite why this should all have come together within the few

the protection of savings the bank of italy is responsible for overseeing the transparency of banking products. this responsibility is entrusted to the bank by law, it is part of the protection that lawmakers have established for savings : entered into the credit circuit, these savings are the fundamental ingredient in the financing of growth. without customer confidence, based on adequate transparency, this mechanism does not work, growth languishes. a. the cost of current accounts the surveys made by the bank of italy show that the average cost of bank current accounts has been basically stable. the cost varies considerably around the average, equal in 2008 to €114. other things being equal, accounts opened more than two years ago cost more than those opened more recently. there is room to improve the conditions to which customers are subject. b. the cost of credit facilities and overdrafts the recent legislative measures on the costs of credit facilities and overdrafts have produced some of the desired effects : banks have changed the structure of fees, also with a view to recouping the lost income from items that have been banned by law. the initial results of a survey we recently conducted indicate that the fees introduced this year following the legislative measures are generally less costly than before for customers ; nevertheless, in about a quarter of the cases examined, the new fees are higher than those in place at the end of 2008. banks must rapidly, drastically and definitively simplify the structure of commitment fees. since august the new instructions for calculating the average percentage rates for the purpose of preventing usury envisage the inclusion of all the charges borne by the customer for the disbursement of credit, including costs that had previously been excluded, such as the maximum overdraft fee, where it is still applied, commitment fees and some insurance and broking charges. for some categories of transaction, the explicit inclusion of these new items has a significant impact, producing threshold rates that are higher than in the past and more representative of the economic terms and conditions applied to customers. this will make it possible to counter circumvention of the usury thresholds and also to curb the amount of ancillary costs. c. new rules on transparency and correct conduct in july we issued new rules on the transparency of banking services and correct conduct in relations with customers. the use of composite indicators for current accounts will allow customers to compare the costs of the different offers available on the market ; the year - end account statements will contain a specific invitation