The idea is that if the central bank uses an active policy to do so, then it’s to correct distortions that exist in financial markets and ensure that lending rates to businesses and households in the economy as a whole are at the right level to get to the level of activity that would be desirable. If there are rigidities and distortions in the private sector that do not engineer the smooth functioning of the economy, then public intervention is fully justified. It does not add up to manipulation because the reality is not perfect to start with. I’m just now thinking in very abstract terms; this was never discussed at the ECB’s Governing Council. This is my personal take on possibilities; it is not more than that. We didn’t start any discussion about the medium-term future of monetary policy, it’s too soon in Europe to start thinking about that. But I’ll just say it’s a possibility and it can work. We could buy more bonds to enforce it – the 33% 1/8  BIS central bankers' speeches  limit [that the ECB has on buying all of the outstanding stock of a country’s government bonds] is a self-binding decision by the Governing Council. That decision could be slightly changed, theoretically, of course. What about the use of the other non-standard measures? There is a view that some of the tools, such as the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme, are closely linked with the current ECB leadership and not as much with the ECB itself.
The losses of CHF 3 billion announced by the bank for the fourth quarter show how important it was to reinforce the capital base. At UBS, the government package provided significant relief to the balance sheet from the burden of illiquid positions particularly affected by the crisis. With this package, the SNB made it possible for UBS to transfer illiquid positions to a special purpose vehicle. The UBS provided this special purpose vehicle with equity amounting to USD 6 billion. The Confederation compensated UBS for the capital requirement arising for this purpose by  BIS Review 157/2008  1  subscribing to mandatory convertible notes (MCN). Since the announcement of the package, the UBS liquidity situation has stabilised. The numerous international measures aimed at stabilising the financial system have also had a positive effect on the position of the Swiss big banks. Nevertheless, further losses cannot be ruled out in view of the difficult market conditions. The situation remains serious, and the SNB will continue monitoring it closely together with the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) and the Federal Department of Finance. Lessons from the crisis and reforms in Switzerland I would now like to speak about the lessons learned from the crisis. The continuing financial crisis is almost unprecedented, in terms of both extent and duration. It is also unprecedented in terms of the measures taken by the authorities and the central banks with the aim of stabilising the situation and minimising the impact on the real economy. This also applies to Switzerland.