* * * I should like as a backdrop to this conference on the challenges confronting monetary policy to focus on certain aspects of one of the issues that will be more broadly discussed later this morning: asset pricing and macroeconomic performance.
Competition for customers and investors will become much tougher in future, and at the same time more international. Global regulation and European supervision will level the playing field on an international scale. German banks are therefore increasingly being forced to face international competition. And an international comparison shows that German banks do indeed have catching-up to do with respect to profitability.