Zooming in at the European banking sector, we see that in many respects the situation is better than ten years ago. 8  Knot, K. (2018), “Speech Klaas Knot Easy Money – Uneasy Finance”, given at Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, published on the DNB website  5  Capital was strengthened, leverage ratios improved, and at least some consolidation took place.
We are in safer waters, as the results of the EU-wide stress tests about a month ago have illustrated. I understand that you will hear more about this later today. And we need these safer waters, as the banking sector does have plenty of challenges ahead of it.