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

and the “ status quo ” in an ever - changing financial system. i will stop here saying that i believe financial stability should always look towards the future. in this direction, significant progress has been made recently through the development of environmental, social and governance – or esg – investing. in this new paradigm, policy makers should first and foremost learn to assess and monitor new types of risks, such as climate change, and evaluate their growing impact on financial sector stability. in an open letter published three weeks ago on climate - related financial risks from the governor of bank of england mark carney, governor of banque de france francois villeroy de galhau and chair of the network for greening the financial services frank elderson, the significant effects of climate change are highlighted and a call for action from central banks and supervision is issued, with specific recommendations where central banks are encouraged to integrate sustainability into their own portfolio management. in closing, the authors recognize that “ climate change is a global problem, which requires global solutions, in which the whole financial sector has a crucial role to play ”. today we have unlocked the gates towards exotic, yet newsworthy debates here, in bucharest. therefore, permit me to extend an open invitation to you all for further discussions at the national bank of romania about the impact of climate changes on economies, finance and central banking. we will be honored to host such a conference in bucharest. thank you for your attention. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches