The Monitor provides an overview of developments in the shadow banking sector, with focus on assessing potential risks to financial stability. It is intended to foster progress of the debate on related issues and hence targets a broad readership. The overall mission is to eliminate potential blind spots on the macroprudential map and to connect all the dots. To achieve that, we need both an analytical framework underpinned by sufficiently high quality data, and a policy framework which enables us to target risks in different parts of the financial system in a consistent manner. The resilience of a specific part of the financial system needs to be linked to its potential impact in terms of the systemic risk it could generate for the financial system as a whole. We may also need to develop a wider financial stability toolkit. This would, for instance, include  |6  top-down stress tests for asset managers and central counterparties, and recovery and resolution frameworks for the insurance sector and central counterparties. The ESRB is very well placed to play one of the leading roles here, due to its mandate, the broad expertise of its membership and its inclusive working methods with a wide range of the relevant stakeholders interacting. The long and winding road from global to national regulation I have been speaking about CRR/CRD on and off here for the past few minutes, but let me just elaborate a little bit more from another angle.
Today, almost seven years after the so called De Larosière Report, we have reached a stage where the European Commission is assessing the current macroprudential framework in the Union, including the role of the ESRB. There are a number of areas where the Commission wants to shed some light before drawing final conclusions about possible improvements. One such area is what would be the best composition of the ESRB’s decision making body, the General Board, and also most of its substructures. In this context suggestions to reduce the size of the General Board have been mentioned. This would in my view not only reduce the number of people around the meeting table, but also take away one of the ESRB’s main strengths. As somebody who has seen the ESRB at work from the inside pretty much since it saw the light of day, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the experiences so far and how we can use them as we move ahead. The ESRB brings together “all sorts” within its remit, and voting modalities pave the way for efficient decision making The ESRB is unique in that it brings together representatives from central banks and financial supervisory authorities from all 28 Member States, representatives from the three European Supervisory Authorities, the ECB, the European Commission and the Economic and Financial Committee as well as the “independent voice” of the ESRB Advisory Scientific Committee, the ASC.