In general, though, although super-equivalence has been avoided for the most part, as a matter of principle, we cannot hide behind international standards as an excuse in any future failures and we have been at pains to argue against an unduly restrictive straitjacket of “maximum harmonisation” of capital standards in Europe. We owe this to our successors.
These overlap with what I noted in my previous speech, but I would like to highlight the two factors that led me to think that upward pressure on prices is highly likely to increase. The first is firms' price-setting behavior.