Spencer Dale: Tough times, unconventional measures Remarks by Mr Spencer Dale, Executive Director and Chief Economist of the Bank of England, at the Association of British Insurers Economics and Research Conference, London, 27 March 2009. I would like to thank Rohan Churm, Alan Mankikar and Tim Taylor for their considerable help in preparing these remarks. The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of other members of the Monetary Policy Committee. *  *  *  The UK economy is in a deep recession. Output in the United Kingdom fell at its fastest rate in nearly thirty years in the final quarter of last year, and a similar fall in output in the first quarter of this year appears likely. We are in the throes of a synchronised global downturn, which has spread far and wide. But the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Although immediate prospects appear bleak, the substantial economic stimulus that is underway means that there are grounds for thinking that economic conditions may start to improve later this year. An important part of that stimulus stems from the extraordinary measures taken by the Monetary Policy Committee over the past six months, including our decision to start using unconventional policy measures. Today, I will describe my view of the economic outlook and outline the factors that I believe will spur a gradual turnaround in our economy.
Also on the policy response to the crisis, we have invested in stress-testing to examine how the balance sheet performs under stress, and thus establish whether the bank is robust in terms of its loss absorbency to extreme but plausible outcomes. This is a central part of what we describe as our forward looking judgemental approach to supervision. I have not so far mentioned one other very important part of the post-crisis reform package, namely ensuring that banks can be resolved if they fail. This should be done without recourse to public funds or the disruption of the critical economic functions provided by banks, such as continuity of access to deposits. At the heart of the resolution reforms is the concept of bail-in, which is that private creditors of a bank absorb the cost and provide the new equity to sustain the provision of these critical functions in the event that it suffers large losses that cause failure. There is nothing radical about the concept of bail-in, which is a debt-equity conversion should a trigger event occur. That is consistent with well-established principles of company restructuring. But with banks it has to happen very quickly if the trigger event that the bank is no longer viable occurs. We cannot wait for a lengthy bankruptcy process. TLAC (Total Loss Absorbing Capacity) or MREL (Minimum Requirements on Eligible Liabilities) are used to describe the specific liabilities which banks will be required to maintain to ensure there are enough liabilities which can feasibly and credibly be converted.