Just days later, the stock market crashed.1 This vividly underlines that the present can be a poor guide to the future. When thinking about an economic “new normal”, we should always be mindful of possible pitfalls like this one. The lead question of today’s conference – “Back to normal – what does it mean?” – can be applied to various aspects of monetary policy.
The banks are able  BIS Review 121/2007  5  to do this primarily on account of the confidence of the customers in the bank concerned and in the banking system, as a whole.