There is also an argument for breathing space to let the political decisions on the sovereign debt crisis be fully implemented, both with respect to fiscal discipline and to building a firewall with adequate resources and sufficient operational flexibility.
Bank exams are no longer exhaustive reviews of all of a bank’s specific activities. Instead, they now take a more targeted approach to identifying and reviewing the sources of risk within a bank’s “portfolio” of activities. Exam resources are now targeted at evaluating the soundness of a bank’s processes for managing risks and our supervisory tools have been enhanced in this direction.