Most of money in the economy is currently made of deposits that result from the maturity transformation—from short-term deposits into medium term loans—that banks perform. Banks meet their liquidity needs for disbursement and reserve requirements by borrowing from the central bank. Monetary policy is then operationalized by setting the rate at which commercial banks can store or withdraw money from the central bank. 2  Central Bank of Chile 29 June, 2017  Slide 2  Central bank functions and tools ▪ Monetary policy and macro regulations operate through the financial system, particularly banks ▪ Most of money in the economy is currently made of bank deposits ▪ Banks resolve their liquidity needs—emerging from disbursement and reserve requirements—by borrowing from the central bank ▪ Monetary policy is then operationalized by setting the rate at which commercial banks can store or withdraw money from the central bank  [SLIDE 3] Today money and financial operations are overwhelmingly composed of balance sheet records. For this reason, banks need to be strictly regulated and the central bank must manage monetary policy to ensure stability in the purchasing power of money. The transmission of monetary policy to the economy and, in the end, to inflation, depends on the smooth operation of commercial banks. At the same time, banks operate as a network and provide liquidity to all sorts of activities. Any disruption in the operation of a bank or in the transmission or provision of funds can have serious economic consequences.
5  Central Bank of Chile 29 June, 2017  Slide 8  Insurance companies coverage: international comparison Penetration of the insurance industry, 2015 (direct gross premiums as a percent of GDP) 40 35 30 25 20 15 Life  10  Non-life  5 LU IE KR US DK UK FR SZ JP IT SE PT DE BE AU NO AT FI ES NL SI IL CL CA NZ EE CZ BR PL AR SK CO IS HU LV MX GR PE TR  0 Source: OECD. [SLIDE 9] The development of finance in developed countries of course didn’t prevent them from getting into a big crisis a decade ago. But if you think that was big you should consider crises in developing countries, like the debt crisis of the early 1980s, the Tequila crisis of 1994 or the economic and political crisis in Argentina in 2001. [SLIDES 11 and 12] They devastated the entire financial system of those countries, evaporated or froze deposits, brought countries into deep recessions and massive unemployment and were only resolved after massive bailouts and debt write offs.