Partly because I know some banks are acting against a base case of contraction. And partly because some of the funding could be used to refinance existing loans at cheaper rates. But also in the first instance, we have set it up so that the funding can be drawn down in advance or as it is needed, not with a delay. That is just one of the features designed with the macroeconomic benefits in mind. At every stage we asked ourselves how the design choice would best support lending growth. I believe we have made the right choices. BIS central bankers’ speeches  11  I would like to conclude by noting that one lesson from the crisis is just how important it is to have a properly functioning financial sector, expert in allocating savings to consumption and investment. Financial markets are not there to line the pockets of the participants. They exist because there are social and economic benefits from the services they provide. I believe most of the industry understands and accepts this. We need to focus on policies which encourage those benefits. For policy to be effective, it also needs to be joined up. The FLS, jointly launched by Bank and HM Treasury, and with supporting actions from the MPC, the FPC and the FSA shows that the new arrangements among these authorities can ensure that policies work together to get the economy back on track to meet the objectives of low and stable inflation, sustained growth and financial stability.
We as a central bank also vested enormous efforts making many adjustments in data collection, production and communication process that helped us smoothing the pandemics effect on the production and dissemination of statistics. The pandemic in the initial phase tested the resilience of the statistical system, i.e., the ability to continue with timely supply of statistical data. But it also created demand pressures for new data that was not produced by the official statistics. Data on the epidemiological curve became highly needed as they are leading indicator on how the economy will evolve and how economic and social policies should be calibrated. At the same time, there has been growing demand for real-time high-frequency data on the economy, as many of the historical systematic linkages that policy decisions were based on were broken. For instance, we have been intensively using google mobility data during the lockdowns to assess the behaviour of consumers. We have also leveraged on the private sector data for payment card transactions, as an indicator to assess the personal consumption dynamics and its structure. Although highly useful, the abundance of data also poses a challenge for statisticians, as accentuated by the health crisis. As we go further down the road, the need for quick and granular data, for example on the changes of the economic behaviour of the agents, the longer term scarring to the economy, or the impact of the policy actions on economy will be a "must".