is going to fill in an institutional gap in our financial sector, which recent developments have made ever more evident. in a banking sector, which remains relatively well profitable, compared to their european peers, despite the decline in lending to nonfinancial corporations, we need an institution that can help create an environment where banks feel comfortable to extend credit to innovative firms, namely firms that may page 8 of 10 not be able to provide adequate collateral due to the nature of their business, but which are still good business opportunities. besides the development bank, there are other policy measures that should help facilitate the flow of credit. at the central bank we will continue to evolve our credit register to provide more information to banks and help reduce credit risk. more broadly we will continue supporting government in its attempts to reduce excessive bureaucracy and further improve the insolvency process. we will also continue to take macroprudential measures to ensure timely policy interventions to safeguard the stability of the financial system. the struggle against bureaucracy is a key element in the broader effort to improve the ease of doing business in this country. we are pleased to note that the world bank ease of doing business team is finally making serious efforts to understand our national specificities. the central bank urges and supports government ’ s ongoing efforts to take the ease of doing business conditions to a new level. of course, it would be unforgivable of me not to seize this opportunity to urge the consultancy community to ensure that the information we provide to international competitiveness ranking agencies is up to date and factually correct. i also take this opportunity to observe that in 2018, malta will undergo a comprehensive and detailed analysis of its financial sector through a financial sector assessment programme ( fsap ) conducted by the international monetary fund. at the same time, malta will be evaluated against international standards on anti - money laundering and counterterrorism financing ( aml / cft ) by moneyval as part of the council of europe ’ s peer review process. we are eagerly looking forward to both. our economy has managed to outperform because we managed to evolve and diversify rapidly. i believe that our financial services and banking sector needs to mirror this, to continuously evolve and adapt to the changing economy. after the success of recent years, we are now in an excellent position to solidify our gains. this requires us all to focus our glance further into the future, and to devote a greater share of current economic prosperity towards financing more long - term projects.

of the national safety nets is put in doubt. • despite the strong financial position of the nordic countries and the high integrity of nordic supervisors, there, may still be a positive impact on the customer perception. one could also expect that improved prudential supervisory procedures could have positive spill - over effects on the market - conduct supervision and even consumer protection which will remain national responsibilities within the ssm. conclusions [ slide 6 ] the disparity between international banking and national supervision and resolution powers have been the achilles heel of the european banking market, a problem that is now finally being addressed. it is regretful that we had to wait until the recent crisis before progress started on this front. • this is particularly important for the nordic banking market, which is exceptionally integrated and interconnected, while the countries ’ starting positions are so divergent, not all being members of the euro area. i hope that the different currency arrangements in the region will not prevent progress in supervision. an important impulse for the establishment of the banking union came from the desire to protect taxpayers and reduce their liability in the banking system. however, in my view, the ssm should also offer significant benefits to the supervised banks : supervisory requirements will be harmonised across borders and there will be one entry point into supervision. grouplevel supervision will be emphasised rather than the supervision of subsidiaries. • this should be quite beneficial especially for those banks which have large crossborder activities. big nordic banks are prime examples of such banks. clearly, the ssm will ease banks ’ international operations and help ensure a level - playing - field for banks. to the above we can add the benefits of stronger investor confidence which should result from the strong, objective and high - quality supervisory work. finally, the billion dollar question : would the recent financial crisis have been avoided in europe if the eu had established the banking union before the problems surfaced? i think probably not completely, since the reasons for the crisis were to a large extent global in nature. but the crisis would likely have been milder and less damaging. the european bis central bankers ’ speeches market would have been less fragile and the authorities could have been able to act more quickly and more decisively. both supervision and resolution would have contributed to that. on the supervision side, better, more credible and internationally uniform supervision would have reduced uncertainty among investors and politicians about the condition of the banking systems of the highly indebted countries. that would have made markets more resilient and avoided some