ivan iskrov : bulgarian national bank – independence, predictability and transparency speech by mr ivan iskrov, governor of the bulgarian national bank, before the 41st national assembly of the republic of bulgaria on the occasion of his election for a second term of office, sofia, 26 august 2009. * * * ms. speaker, ladies and gentlemen mps, allow me first and foremost to thank you for the enormous trust and the strong support you just now gave to the central bank and its governor, ivan iskrov. i don ’ t know of any head of any public institution that has so far enjoyed such a vast parliamentary vote of confidence with the support of 195 mps. this result exceeds the 165 votes in support of my nomination in the previous 40th national assembly. when a week ago i shared with the person closest to me that i had decided to use the parliamentary case of mr. nenovsky to submit myself to a confidence vote by the 41st national assembly, i heard the following : “ isn't this step rather too risky, besides the prime minister publicly announced that he did not approve of the procedure but he respects the bnb as an institution, and highly values you as a governor and wishes you to continue on the post? " i replied that no one could predict the possible deliberations and how the 240 mps would vote, but that i was nonetheless obliged to ask for their confidence. or else on 9th october this year i leave! because, ladies and gentlemen, as i have repeatedly shared with my colleagues at the bank, when requiring the tasks to be performed with 100 % precision, rather than in a slapdash manner, we in the central bank have an asset even more valuable than its international reserves. this key asset is the reputation of the bnb and of each of its employees. i promised to your colleagues of the 39th national assembly that i would never take part in fruitless discussions, neither would i refute any possible silly allegations of dishonourable people or of unqualified “ know - it - all ” experts. the people around me, however, know how painful it was for me to bear any stupidity or slander, not for my own credibility but for the confidence the bulgarian society should have in our national bank. the bnb is de jure and de facto the most independent public institution ; it owes its independence to you – the elected representatives of the people, and reports only and solely to you, to the bulgarian national assembly. therefore i felt

practices. i will now go through the recent and ongoing climate - related initiatives related to our supervisory work. the ecb guide and climate - related disclosures 2 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches in november last year we published the ecb guide on climate - related and environmental risks. 6 it builds on the guide for supervisors7 of the network of central banks and supervisors for greening the financial system ( ngfs ), and communicates the ecb ’ s understanding of a prudent approach to managing such risks to banks, markets and the wider public, with the aim of raising banks ’ awareness and preparedness for managing them. in our guide, we outline our supervisory expectations for how climate and environmental risks should be embedded in all relevant bank processes, from banks ’ risk management frameworks to their governance structures, risk appetite, business model and strategy, and, importantly, their reporting and disclosures. our ultimate goal is to cause banks to make sure their business strategies fully reflect the paris agreement – and there is one thing that will be key in getting us there : data. when it comes to tackling climate risk as a financial risk, data are what we are missing the most. recently, a task force on climate - related financial risks that operates under the basel committee on banking supervision looked into the effects of physical and transition risks on banks. this task force, which i have the honour to co - chair with the federal reserve system ’ s kevin stiroh, concluded that climate - related risks can be captured in risk categories that are already used by financial institutions and reflected in the basel framework, for example credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk and operational risk. this is a key insight which saves us from inventing all kinds of new risk categories. the existing ones will do. however, the task force also concluded that we still need an enhanced toolbox that can better measure climate risks. this is why the ecb is encouraging banks to enhance both the quantity and the quality of their climaterelated disclosures, and to become more transparent about their overall exposures to climaterelated risks. banks are still in the early stages of incorporating climate change into their risk frameworks ; risk identification and risk limits around climate - related goals do not yet actually feature in their risk management processes. this needs to change. euro area banks need to drastically improve their capacity to manage climate - related and environmental risks and start acknowledging how these risks can drive others, including credit, market, operational and