careful analysis of the impact of basel ii, and we have the tools at our disposal to make any necessary changes to the calibration. accord implementation group the second area of implementation i would like to discuss is the work of the basel committee ’ s accord implementation group, or aig. the aig is chaired by nick le pan, whom many of you know as the superintendent of financial institutions in canada and who is also the vice chairman of the basel committee. as nick discussed at the iib ’ s annual conference here in washington in march, the aig plays a critical role in trying to ensure consistency of implementation of basel ii across borders. as representatives of international banks, i know that consistent cross - border implementation of basel ii is a high priority not only because you want supervision to reflect as much as possible the manner in which your organisations are managed, but also because you may be concerned about supervisory burden. let me assure you that it is also in the best interest of supervisors that we try to minimise as much as possible any duplication of effort and make the most of our limited resources. having said that, i should also be clear that basel ii will never be implemented with 100 % consistency across borders, just as basel i is not currently implemented with 100 % consistency. there are important differences in laws, financial markets and supervisory practices, among others, that make it impractical to expect that basel ii will look exactly the same in every country. the role of the aig, then, is to share information and promote — not mandate or enforce — consistency in implementation of basel ii. it is clear that there is no “ one - size - fits - all ” approach to implementing the new framework. rather, implementation should be tailored to the specific circumstances of a bank and the jurisdictions it operates in. it seems to me that to enhance consistency we need to work on improving vertical co - operation, namely home - host issues, and also horizontal co - operation, that is to say convergence of practices. we think that the bottom - up approach is the most efficient and less prescriptive method of achieving these goals. in this regard, one of the primary methods the aig uses to promote cross - border co - operation is to encourage home supervisors of the 50 or 60 largest internationally active banks in basel committee member countries to engage in practical outreach to host supervisors and the bank to open clear lines of communication and co - operation. while these outreach efforts were initially considered to be “ case

08. 07. 2019 the banco de espana and its promotion of economic history research presentation of the “ guide to historical banking archives in spain ” pablo hernandez de cos governor good morning, ladies and gentlemen. it is a pleasure for me to close this conference, which has presented the “ guide to historical banking archives in spain ”. this publication, both for the quality of its information and the wealth of data it contains, will no doubt contribute to increasing knowledge on the historical development of the spanish banking system. i would like to thank all those who have participated in this project for their efforts. my gratitude in particular to the academic historian, pedro tedde, to professor maria del carmen angulo, and to all those institutions and individuals who have enthusiastically collaborated in the publication of the guides to their respective archives. and naturally, too, to the banco de espana teams behind this initiative. the value of the initiative lies in the very value of the spanish banking and banco de espana archive collections. these archives are fundamental to the study of our history and the development of spain ’ s banking system. in this respect, i wish to highlight the importance of having historical archives that allow documents to be held and conserved and that guarantee their traceability and integrity. without these archives, our knowledge of the past would no doubt be limited. indeed, their subject matter provides for well - founded historical analysis and for a better understanding of the reasons that led to specific financial decisions. and, in light of the central role of banking in our economic system, it also allows us to examine the conditioning factors of many decisions taken by bank debtors, i. e. by firms, households and governments over time. i therefore believe we should welcome a new publication which describes and identifies for the first time, in an orderly fashion, the contents of 10 different historical archives of banks or spanish institutions and of the 218 documentary series they comprise. the publication also contains a full map of the development of the spanish banking system from its origins until late 2017. adding to it is the article by pedro tedde, which rigorously analyses the spanish banking system during the twentieth century. a reading of the publication offers clues that the process of change has, with differing degrees of intensity, been continuous. hence, while the current transformation in banking may have different causes and rhythms than those in the past, deep knowledge of previous events can also offer us significant lessons today on the challenges currently ahead of the spanish financial system. in any event, the publication we present