It is a pleasure for the Oesterreichische Nationalbank to continue the long tradition of offering our annual East-West Conferences as a platform and a meeting place for debates on issues relevant to those countries – but not only to them – in order to help developing answers to the challenges ahead.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  lending, the willingness and ability of community banks to lend to small businesses that have lost access to lending from large banks, and the determinants of community bank performance both before and during the recent financial crisis – and the extent to which these determinants were under the control of bank managers.6 Our hope is that this focused research effort not only will hone our understanding of the key role that community banks play in the U.S. economy, but also will help us to more effectively supervise these banks.