For regulation to respond dynamically to changing circumstances in order to preserve systemic stability, macroprudential policy is needed. In the United Kingdom, the primary objective of the new Bank of England Financial Policy Committee (FPC) is to protect and enhance the resilience of the UK financial system, with a subordinate objective of supporting growth and employment. As well as being able to make Recommendations to the UK prudential supervisors and securities regulators on anything relevant to stability, Parliament has given the FPC power to direct changes in capital requirements for banks. Macroprudential tools and system resilience In some ways, the effects of a temporary change in macroprudential capital requirements will be similar to a permanent change in the capital regime. An action to increase banks’ equity base by, say, 10% will increase their loss-absorbing capacity by 10%. That leaves the system better placed to cope with losses should they crystallise. As such, irrespective of whether the action dampens the boom phase of the credit cycle, it will reduce the severity of the bust. Fewer, if any, banks will fail; a tightening in credit supply is therefore less likely to become a full-blown credit crunch; the resulting slowdown in output growth should be less severe; the default rate on bank loan portfolios lower; and so on. I rehearse that because the primary objective of a macroprudential intervention – improving the financial system’s resilience – can be progressed even if the credit boom itself is not tempered much.
This confirms their capacity to meet the targets set for 30 June 2012 by the European Banking Authority (EBA), thereby contributing to their adaptation to the future Basel III regulatory framework and the fulfilment of the objectives announced to the market. Lastly, the ACP has resolutely placed its individual supervision within a macro-prudential perspective. Our Authority has been particularly attentive to the way banks fulfil their role in financing the economy via the extension of loans to non-financial companies and to households, in a context in which both regulatory changes and liquidity constraints, particularly in dollars, have prompted certain groups to deleverage. It has undertaken an in-depth analysis and published studies on developments in household credit as well as the reallocation of households’ financial investments, particularly between bank savings products and insurance savings products. II)  2011 – and this is my second point – was a year that saw the reinforcement of the methods used in prudential supervision. It was above all the year in which the process of merging banking and insurance supervision was completed. Having been set up in the midst of the crisis that we are going through, the ACP continually reviews the methods it uses to deal with new challenges. On the one hand, the traditional activities of on- and off-site inspections have been enhanced by taking the best procedures and practices from each of the two sectors, leading to improved quality and comparability in the assessment of the situation of the different institutions being inspected.