Indeed, these developments reinforce the truth of a key lesson from our banking history - that private counterparty supervision remains the first line of regulatory defense. The speed of transactions and the growing complexities of financial instruments have required a focus more on risk-management procedures than on actual portfolios.
Indeed, I would characterize recent examination innovations and proposals as attempting both to harness and to simulate market forces in the supervision of banks. The impact of technology on financial services and therefore, of necessity, on supervision and regulation is the critical issue that frames the supervisory agenda as we move into the 21st century.