And the banking system, with much stronger capital and liquidity reserves, continued to lend – supported by new schemes such as the CCFF, built from scratch in record time. In designing our interventions, we have been careful to demarcate clearly between our respective institutional responsibilities: the MPC took the decisions on asset purchases; the Treasury bore the financial risk on lending to corporates; and we reminded financial markets that any usage of the Ways & Means account would be temporary and short term. In light of those actions, and similar steps by other central banks globally, core markets are today stable and well-functioning. That is no small achievement. But it is far too soon to take a lap of honour, even on the narrow stage I have occupied today. Financial markets could come under strain again, if there is another leg to the global infection cycle, or if economic data come out persistently worse than expected. And even if – as hoped – we escape that, the sheer scale of our interventions means we must, in time, ask ourselves hard questions about the financial markets we  14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  14  rely upon, and their potential to amplify the sort of ‘dash for cash’ we saw in March and April.
of ops Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF) per week US dollar swaplines  Audio/video calls bank wide (RHS) Attendance in Threadneedle Street office (LHS)  3000  40 2500  30  Calls per day  Attendance 11 Mar: Bank rate cut 19 Mar: Bank rate cut 23 Mar: Lockdown begins  14000 12000 10000  2000 8000  20  1500 6000 1000 4000  10 500  2000  0 28 Feb  13 Mar 27 Mar  10 Apr  24 Apr  08 May 22 May  0 Mar.20  0 Apr.20  May.20  Source: Bank of England Source: Bank of England  What have we learned? Some (very) tentative lessons  The Covid-19 crisis is very far from over. The medical and economic challenges we face are huge and potentially persistent – and many are not for central banks to resolve. Against that backdrop, I have covered only one aspect of our actions during the crisis: the steps we took to prevent the initial shock, and the uncertainty that came with it, from threatening monetary and financial stability. Let’s take the good news first. The central banking response was bigger, faster, and more comprehensively co-ordinated with domestic and international partners than ever before. We deployed the tools developed since the GFC – extending the dollar swap lines, the CTRF, the TFSME and asset purchases.