council of the ecb. we ’ ll first discuss how and when we stop purchasing assets. only later on in the second stage we ’ ll discuss interest rates. we ’ ve been clear that we expect interest rates to remain at the current levels, meaning very low, for an extended period of time and well past the horizon for asset purchases. well past means well past so that ’ s not a discussion we ’ re having and we really expect interest rates to remain very low for an extended period of time. will the asset purchases go on through september? president draghi said last week when asked, was august next year or middle of summer next year a likely time, he said yes. markets form expectations. we ’ ll have the discussion as policymakers at some point, but that ’ s not something we have discussed so far. the ecb obviously doesn ’ t set market rates, the rates that banks charge to the likes of me and our viewers tonight, but you do monitor the rates that are charged. your reporting has shown that irish banks are consistently charging much higher rates than the eurozone average. why are they charging so much and what can you do about it? as you rightly say, we are not deciding on the rates charged by banks. i ’ m also charged by my 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches bank in frankfurt and i have no say on that. what we do is to set the policy rates ; that is a shortterm rate decided by the ecb. i would say that it mainly reflects irish banks are still having some way to go to deal with the legacy of the crisis. they ’ ve been doing good work in terms of being more productive, more efficient. they are doing a good job to get rid of non - performing loans, but that ’ s a journey and it ’ s a long journey. the central bank of ireland, the irish government have been very supportive. there ’ s a whole strategy there but it will take time for irish banks to come back to – totally to normality when it comes to their legacy costs. that has to be reflected somewhere. but the spanish banks also had a property bust and the same problems, but their rates are so much lower. i think it ’ s very difficult to compare different economies here because we are talking of retail rates and the structures are different in spain and in ireland. well, that ’ s an area where we still don ’ t have a homogenous market across the euro

part of that, the ssm is working to take stock of supervisory best practices. more action is needed to address shortcomings in insolvency, collateral and taxation frameworks. accounting standards are also important to address the issue. in the us, accounting standards require us banks to reduce, after six months, their npes to the market value of their collateral, if any. balance sheets are therefore cleaned up of bad loans rather swiftly. this illustrates how accounting standards interact with supervisory concerns. until now, the incurred loss model has been applied under ifrs which does not impose a timely treatment of npes by the banks. as a consequence, npes accumulate in banks ’ balance sheets, consuming capital and not contributing to banks ’ profitability. the introduction of ifrs 9 as from 2018 will change this situation. the ecb has already publicly expressed its support for a swift endorsement of ifrs 9. in our view, the new requirements for the classification, measurement and impairment of financial instruments, as well as the new general hedge accounting model, constitute an improvement over the previous requirements in ias 39. moreover, we believe that some aspects of the non - performing exposures ( npes ) can be defined as impaired exposures and past due ( > 90 days ) exposures. the ratio of non - performing loans refers to the ratio of non - performing loans to total gross loans. bis central bankers ’ speeches new standard may be an improvement from a financial stability perspective. the merits of the new expected credit loss model will clearly depend on its proper and consistent implementation in the financial sector. in this perspective, it is important that more granular instructions are given by the standard - setters and regulatory authorities in order to ensure that the implementation of the new standard is not subject to different interpretations that would not respect a proper level playing field. at the same time, it will be crucial to monitor the application of ifrs 9 in order to ensure that there are no unintended cyclical consequences of its implementation. in the us, the fasb just announced the approval of similar standards that nevertheless will only start to be applied in 2020. us banks have been critical of what will be a major change in frontloading provisions for credit risk. the introduction of both new standards will be a substantial change that will affect banks, already subject to more demanding regulation to which new features will continue to be added until year - end, albeit with the promise of not leading to a “ significant increase in capital