13  The statement is available at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/news/2017/008.pdf. 10  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  10  VII. Conclusion  The UK has been at the forefront of efforts to make the global financial system safer, simpler and fairer. Recognising our role as guardians of the leading international financial centre, we have gone further than these minimum global standards. These efforts ensure that the world’s largest international financial centre both protects and serves the UK economy. And they mean that others can rely on us as a pillar of strength for the international monetary and financial system. As the FPC has made clear, we won’t turn our backs on these hard won gains. There should be no bonfire of financial regulation. But we will be dynamic – learning by doing and making adjustments, as necessary, to optimise our efforts without compromising on the level of resilience the world’s leading international financial centre demands. We will ring fence our banks to protect the core retail financial services they provide to households and companies. We won’t allow undercapitalised, opaque financial institutions to operate freely within our borders. But, while we won’t hesitate to do what’s necessary to protect the UK real economy, we will also work tirelessly for a responsible and open financial system that benefits all. A decade of hard fought financial reform creates enormous opportunities. It is all too easy to give into protectionism, but the road less taken is often the most rewarding.
Prasarn Trairatvorakul: Global risks and the outlook for Thailand Address by Dr Prasarn Trairatvorakul, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the Fitch Ratings 100th Anniversary Conference, Bangkok, 27 September 2013. *  *  *  Distinguished speakers and panelists, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to thank Fitch Ratings (Thailand) for inviting me to give an opening address at this year’s annual conference. Much has changed both at home and abroad since I gave an opening address at this event two years ago. In retrospect, however, it is interesting to look back over the past two years and notice how most global risks we talked about – for instance, fiscal drag and political gridlock in the U.S., sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone, among others – are still with us today. Most of the risks have reduced in terms of magnitude and urgency, but they certainly have not disappeared. In fact, each of them took turn to appear in the media spotlight and became an object of market’s obsession. Victor Hugo once said, “No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.” And that sounds fitting for today’s financial market, where obsession with one idea could have a far-reaching implication for so many countries, at once, in an invasive way that is hard to shield against. A. The state of indecisiveness that we live in  It has been almost six years since the beginning of the global financial crisis.