Designing this process so that it is reliably consistent and predictable for all banks is an area we should study further. Another method we could explore is to dedicate some portion of our exam work to reviewing compliance with concrete regulatory standards, such as some of our liquidity riskmanagement standards, where the standards lend themselves to that approach.
In Germany, however, only 5% to 7% of the financial needs of the corporate sector are covered by the equity market. Nevertheless, access to the bond market has also become more difficult for some enterprises owing to the fact that their credit rating has declined. For some firms, the high risk premium on corporate bonds has pushed up financing costs.