It responded to this gold outflow with measures that contributed to the panic and, after an admittedly long chain of events, led to my being here today. Of course, now we have a different financial system and better means to coordinate an international response to such events. One of these mechanisms is the Financial Stability Board (FSB), which I chair.
With the granting of a Full Commercial Banking licence in February 1975, the bank became the first European mainland banking institution to conduct business in Bahrain. Later in the same year, the bank was one of the first international institutions to be granted an Offshore Banking Unit licence.