This won’t a silver bullet – investment funds may face  15  See December 2019 Financial Stability Report , and speech by Alex Brazier (2019): Stability, Agility, Opportunity See December 2019 Financial Stability Report 17 See speech by Christopher Woolard (2020): The role of investment managers in the post Covid-19 recovery 16  10  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  10  other obstacles to investing in unlisted equity and the needs of unlisted companies will vary depending on their current ownership structure and size. But it would certainly be a step in the right direction. To reinforce it, we will also need to examine whether there are obstacles to insurance companies and pension funds making investments in unlisted equity, whether that’s directly or through funds structures of the sort I described. On the insurance side, there is little case for compromising on the resilience of insurance companies and protection of their policyholders. But we need to examine whether, within that level of safety, regulations strike the right balance in encouraging asset allocations to equity. The upcoming review – announced by the Chancellor – of certain Solvency II regulations may be a good opportunity to look at that issue. The Government expects to publish a Call for Evidence in the Autumn.18  On the pension side, it is notable that funds typically offer a daily price of their assets.
3  See Chancellor of the Exchequer: A Plan for Jobs 2020 See speech by Jon Cunliffe (2020): Financial System Resilience: Lessons from a real stress 5 See letter from FSB Chair Randal Quarles to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors: July 2020 4  3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  3  Since central banks acted, markets have opened up again, allowing companies to raise finance. Britain’s companies issued more than £ of new bonds since March. A second response was also needed. The seizure of corporate debt markets meant that larger companies that normally enjoy market access were suddenly faced with uncertainty about access to that finance when it was most needed. They turned, as a precaution, to banks to bolster their cash positions. What followed was not a run on the banks driven by fear about the banks, but a run to the banks driven by fear on the part of businesses about their own access to finance. In a complete contrast to what happened in the 2008 financial crisis, bank lending shot up. Net of repayments, banks lent £ in March – more than 30 times their normal monthly net lending flow as large companies drew on committed credit lines. That threatened to overwhelm the capacity banks have to lend to the wider population of businesses. The Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF), owned by the Treasury and operated by the Bank of England, was designed to alleviate that pressure.