It could be safely said that we now have a more robust backstop as regards liquidity provision in the major currencies during market turmoil. The challenge ahead is to devise frameworks to deal with the case where a financial institution with a global reach faces foreign currency liquidity shortages for idiosyncratic reasons and the case involving non-major "local" currency liquidity shortages.
The first is the enormous increase in cross-border activities made possible by the liberalisation of capital markets. The second is the blurring of the borderlines between banking, insurance and securities activities. These fundamental developments are the driving force behind the increasing need for convergence of supervisory practices across borders and sectors. Let me illustrate by looking at our experiences in the Netherlands.