And back then, everyone agreed that the revised rulebook needed to be a global one. The crisis clearly demonstrated that banking is a global business, so the rules that govern it should also be global. Today, however, it is much less clear whether everyone still subscribes to the idea of a global rulebook. And this worries me. It worries me because it shows that people are starting to forget the lessons we learned from the crisis. That’s why we need to finalise the global rulebook, Basel III, as quickly as possible. But that is just the first step. The second step is to implement and apply the rules in a broadly consistent manner at regional and national level. And this is a challenge – sometimes we see quite a different interpretation of the standards when it comes to implementing and applying them at national level. You won’t be surprised that I will focus on the euro area. The euro area countries have become closely intertwined. For many years now they have shared a single market and a single currency. Since the crisis, they have even begun to build a banking union, which includes a single supervisor. But when it comes to regulation, we still see differences between countries. It is true, of course, that we have a single rulebook in Europe. As one might expect for a union, 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  we had to come further than other countries. However, parts of that rulebook come in the form of EU directives.
Sabine Lautenschläger: Regulation, supervision and market discipline - striking a balance Statement by Ms Sabine Lautenschläger, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the European Central Bank, at a conference hosted by the Financial Stability Institute, Basel, 18 September 2017. * * * Almost nine years ago to the day, the investment bank Lehman Brothers failed. What followed was a financial crisis that wreaked havoc on economies around the globe. But it did more than that. The crisis also shattered many beliefs about how the banking system works and how it should be regulated and supervised. There was a time when many people believed that the market could bring about a stable and efficient banking sector on its own. They thought that market forces would ensure banks had sustainable business models that were resilient to the ups and downs of the economy. We now know that this did not turn out so well. In fact, there are three pillars that support a stable banking sector: regulation, supervision and market discipline. The crisis made clear that all of these pillars were in need of some repairs. The good news is that we have come a long way – today, the banking sector rests on more solid foundations than before. But some issues still need to be resolved. Let us briefly look over them, beginning with regulation. Once the crisis had started, everyone agreed that the rulebook needed to be rewritten.