It is also possible that, in addition to the distribution  8  of the costs and benefits of the reserves, which is built into the current regulatory framework for the financial interactions between the Treasury and the Central Bank, ways could be found for banks and even other financial institutions to participate in the cost of financing the reserves, as these institutions enjoy the benefits of them, including better credit ratings and lower foreign financing costs. The worst that we could do in this context would be to sacrifice the long-term benefits of price stability and economic equilibrium in order to increase the Central Bank’s profits in the short-term. The monetary policy framework I would now like to turn to two related topics: the pros and cons of independent monetary policy, on the one hand, and possible changes to the monetary policy framework and implementation, on the other. I must be brief because the clock is ticking, but I am more than willing to answer questions about this and other points later on. “Is independent monetary policy too costly?” is the topic of this meeting. Presumably, the question implied is whether the benefits of such monetary policy are outweighed by the costs. To my mind, this question can hardly be answered without reference to the various options available because we must have some sort of currency regime, and all of them have pros and cons. If there is a currency union, it is the monetary policy of the union’s central bank that carries the day.
There is no doubt that tremendous efforts have been made in the wake of the financial crisis to reach our objective of financial stability, providing the policymakers with additional tools to build-in robustness into the global financial system, increase the loss absorption capacity of financial institutions and infrastructures, and limit the scope for contagion while new approaches to prevent systemic risk have been developed, namely macroprudential policies. However, due to the magnitude of the task, its difficulty and its complexity, global regulators had to proceed with a sequential approach, starting by the banking system where their knowhow was the best, and expanding gradually a framework to the rest of the financial system in concentric circles. As a consequence, we are currently facing three challenges that I would like to focus on: keeping the momentum for reforms, allowing for the diversity and ensuring the robustness of the global financial system. 1. Keeping the momentum  After such a long and intense conference day, you might already feel a sentiment of regulatory fatigue! Consequently, you might appreciate the feeling of regulators and financial intermediaries after more than 8 years of intense regulatory developments and debates! And yet, the latter are not completed nor their implementation! Banking regulation, which is almost complete now, will only come into force in 2018–2019, even though it has already been largely factored in by markets and banking institutions. But regulation is still under development for the rest of the financial system.