I am conscious that bankruptcy regimes, often mentioned in the framework of the CMU, represent a legal challenge. Let us see how we could at least progress on this issue for bank bankruptcies. This work may be focused on the more essential points to facilitate consistency with the resolution tools, like treatment of depositors/creditors hierarchy. 4. The need for an integrated approach to new players. Finally, looking forward now, let me consider broader developments in the financial sphere. Recent trends in financial innovation have fuelled the emergence of a renewed financial intermediation ecosystem, involving new players – including tech companies, be they FinTechs or BigTechs. The associated technological disruptions have resulted in regulatory arbitrage practices, especially on the banking market. Lending activities by non-bank financial intermediaries also circumvent prudential regulation. I wish to stress a major point here: we must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Innovation must not translate into further fragmentation. Right from the start we should try to have an integrated supervision at the European level for new players and new technologies. Regarding innovation, private initiatives do have their role to play in fostering a European integration. Here, let me commend the European Payments Initiative (EPI) project. The EPI will provide citizens with a unified, innovative and autonomous European payment solution, as an alternative to the dominant and extra-European players already established in Europe or the BigTechs in the future. We must support the emergence of such Pan-European projects, in order to preserve and reinforce our financial sovereignty.
At the level of monetary measures, the Central Bank of Kuwait cut the interest rate several times in March 2020 down to all-time low 1.5% to reduce the borrowing cost and ensure that the temporary liquidity issues at the CBK-regulated units would not turn to permanent issues to their solvency. This step was followed by a series of measures related to financial stability including activation of its emergency plans and those of the banking sector to address the requirements of the pandemic, as well as taking a package of measures within the macroprudential policy to ease the regulatory requirements upon the outbreak of the crisis, the most important of which was releasing the prudential capital buffers of 2.5%, facilitating liquidity requirements to provide a wider lending space for banks, and reducing the risk weights related to exposures to small and medium enterprises, thus supporting the vulnerable sectors. As regards, the financial stability, the measures included payment moratoriums for the affected customers, obligating banks not sell or seize the collateral, and instructing banking sector units to conduct a comprehensive review of their credit and investment portfolios. To mitigate the economic and financial damages, and maximize the benefits from the aforementioned monetary and financial measures, the Central Bank developed and implemented a clear plan to follow up on the situations during the pandemic, in light of the data on the conditions and spreading infection.