Back to the present, I am delighted that the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland has been involved in the development, organisation and hosting of this latest conference. I know that we have benefited significantly from collaborating with the ECB and CFS in this field and I look forward to further developing these links in the future.
All three organisers certainly set themselves a significant task when they undertook to "coordinate and stimulate top-level and policy-relevant research that significantly contributes to our understanding of financial system structures and integration".