While it was important to learn from the experiences and successes of other central banks, it was also crucial to recognise the new environment for monetary policy making in the euro area, and acknowledge the high level of uncertainty which was an inevitable result of the introduction of the new currency and the creation of such a large and complex currency area.
We did so because the more we learned in our pursuit of those individual issues, and the more concerns were voiced by customers, consumer advocates and public representatives such as yourselves, the more certain we became that an investigation across every lender was required.