(x)  Micro financing: To provide widespread access to small borrowers particularly in the rural areas the licensing and regulatory environment for Micro Credit and Rural financial institutions have been  BIS Review 5/2005  3  relaxed and unlike the commercial banks these can be set up at district, provincial and national levels with varying capital requirements.
Credit standards, but also capital inflows, differ significantly across countries, as does, therefore, the optimal policy. Let me now turn to systemic risk more generally. Stijn, together with Bryan Kelly and Hanno Lustig, point to the issue that government guarantees may distort systemic risk indicators.