Only then can they build and hold sufficient capital to be compliant with international regulations, to be fully financially autonomous and not dependent on an implicit backstop of the State, to have the resilience to deal with future shocks and to serve customers properly. Their recent return to profitability is modest and significantly dependent on provision write-backs rather than normal business profitability.
The crisis continues to have serious legacy issues that cannot be resolved easily or painlessly. To mention just one example, ensuring that borrowers whose loans have been sold to unregulated firms do continue to obtain the consumer protections that they previously had is a concern which the Bank has been to the fore in advocating.