We will above all check whether the business models of banks we directly supervise are sustainable, whether bank-internal control structures and governance are set up in an appropriate way and whether the institutions could survive crises. If during an upturn a bank’s resilience is increased, then there’s less need to raise capital during a downturn to boost market confidence.
Under such circumstances, it should then be possible to use macro-prudential instruments that support lending, such as the releasing of countercyclical capital buffers. This would help monetary policy to achieve more predictable effects throughout the economic cycle. But the interests of the banking supervisors and of those responsible for macro-prudential supervision do not always have to be aligned.