As I reflect on the timing of “tapering”, an astute observation of a former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, William McChesney Martin (Jr), comes to mind: “The job of the FED is to take away the punch bowl just as the party is getting going.” I suspect that the macroprudential measures, that we introduced recently, to minimise the risk of overheating in the construction sector, must have evoked similar sentiments in the industry.
2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The first is a rising number of non-performing loans on banks’ balance sheets and their slow resolution in several countries. This causes banks to preserve capital and avoid risky new exposures, such as those to SMEs. The second obstacle, which is related, is low investor confidence in banks’ asset quality and provisioning.