This is a more complex arrangement than found in other countries, where, with rare exceptions, the two resolution functions are united under the banking supervisory authority (in Spain, the Banco de España). Combining the two functions under the banking supervisor can be justified on the grounds of economies of information and cost, and consistency in the assessment of the implications for financial stability. 16 See P. Hernández de Cos (2021), “The Role of Central Banks and Banking Supervisors in Climate Action”, opening remarks at the IESE conference Resilience of the financial system to natural disasters. 9  These new risks include notably those stemming from new technological developments, such as those associated with cyberattacks or the reliance on external service providers. Such technological changes may also ultimately have a significant impact on financial services’ value chain, insofar as growing competition from BigTech firms, which possess an enormous volume of customer data and use them extremely efficiently, may become a potential channel for disruption. The implications for the prudential authorities are particularly important. First, proactive supervision is required, as the traditional regulatory framework may not be sufficient. Second, we should give consideration to the regulatory perimeter to ensure that the oft-cited mantra of “same activities, same risks, same rules” actually applies. And third, cooperation among different authorities will be essential, given the diversity of sectors and issues potentially affected by these technological innovations. In this regard, customer data governance is a fundamental issue which we will need to reflect upon at great length.
Starting positions, in terms of equity and credit quality, were already divergent. Moreover, in a crisis such as the current one, in which the pandemic is affecting different regions and sectors of activity in different ways, the worsening of banks’ solvency will foreseeably hinge on their degree of exposure to such regions and sectors. The current situation: the importance of maintaining stimulus measures and targeting them more specifically The current macroeconomic setting is characterised by an incomplete, gradual and uncertain recovery. Indeed, as a result of the restrictions on mobility that had to be applied in the first quarter, a further decline in GDP in this period cannot be ruled out. This would mean that, at end-March, GDP would still be slightly over 9 pp below its pre-crisis level. In any event, we should acknowledge that the development of effective vaccines against the virus has contained some of the risks to the economy. And, in turn, this has equipped the authorities with what is, in fact, also the best economic policy tool available to usher in the recovery: the roll-out of vaccination programmes that allow for the progressive lifting of the restrictions on economic activity. In this situation, retaining the exceptional support measures for the economy is warranted until the recovery firms. This support is also crucial for preventing the crisis from being compounded by a financial component that would deepen and lengthen it.