an ongoing basis. all in all, our financial system provides a range of services that pretty much satisfies the needs of barbadian households and large and well established businesses. however, venture capital is in short supply, and the fixed investment needs of small and medium sized enterprise continue to be a challenge for us. our session this afternoon will explore this conundrum. impact of the crisis the global recession which is dated from the september 15 2008 lehman bankruptcy, had little effect on the barbadian financial system, with the one important exception of clico. as might have been expected, the weakness of the barbadian economy resulted in late and incomplete debt service by some firms and households, but in the typical case a workout arrangement was put in place. on the other hand, government maintained its perfect service record, both for domestic and foreign debt. bis central bankers ’ speeches changes in business finance the most noticeable changes in financial transactions in recent times have been on the foreign exchange market. the interbank market is now inactive, in contrast to the situation up to a decade ago, when daily interbank transactions of a modest size were the norm. large customers of the banks have corporate treasuries which manage their transactions and exposures in several currencies, matching exposures by currency so as to minimise net exposure in foreign exchange, and reduce the transactions costs of currency conversion. we have looked into this phenomenon at this conference in years past, and when we meet with banks we invariably discuss how the market is evolving. some businesses appear to have achieved a degree of independence of their bankers, with respect to foreign currency receipts and payments. in so far as this facilitates payment of imports out of private firms'foreign earnings, there is no problem with that arrangement. our programme today includes an update on the financial system, a presentation on cyber security, investment options for insurance companies, the view from the credit union sector, a new look at banking subsidiaries, and a panel on equity finance. it is a varied menu, and one that is certain to be instructive. we expect to have a productive day. bis central bankers ’ speeches

with an average of just 30 per cent over the five years to 2010. more than 40 per cent of the new dwellings built in new south wales recently have been apartments, which tend to be more attractive to investors. https : / / www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2019 / sp - gov - 2019 - 03 - 06. html 8 / 18 3 / 7 / 2019 the housing market and the economy | speeches | rba graph 8 the strong demand from investors had its roots in the population dynamics. low interest rates and favourable tax treatment added to the attraction of investing in an appreciating asset. the positive side to this was that the strong demand by investors helped underpin the extra construction activity needed to house the growing population. but the rigidities on the supply side, coupled with investors'desire to benefit from a rising market in a low interest rate environment, amplified the price increases. as i discussed earlier, there is an internal dynamic to housing price cycles, and this one is no exception. by 2017, the ratio of the median home price to income had reached very high levels in sydney and melbourne ( graph 9 ). finding the deposit to purchase a home had become beyond the reach of many people, especially first home buyers if they did not have others to help them. at the same time, the combination of high prices and weak growth in rents meant that rental yields were quite low. so, naturally, momentum shifted. given the big run - up in prices and the large increase in supply, a correction at some point was not surprising, although the precise timing is nearly impossible to predict. https : / / www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2019 / sp - gov - 2019 - 03 - 06. html 9 / 18 3 / 7 / 2019 the housing market and the economy | speeches | rba graph 9 no discussion of housing prices is complete without touching on interest rates and the availability of finance. the low interest rates over the past decade did increase people's capacity to borrow and made it more attractive to borrow to buy an asset whose price was appreciating. but the increase in housing prices is not just about low interest rates. the variation across the different housing markets indicates that city - specific factors have played an important role. recently, much attention has also been paid to the availability of credit. this attention has coincided with a noticeable slowing in housing credit growth, especially to investors ( graph 10 ). https : / /