Wednesday, Jul 15, 2020
Supervising the New Normal (Part 1)
Join this live conversation to gain insights on how central bankers, health experts, and financial sector supervisors are dealing with the new normal. This episode features:
- David Nabarro – Special Envoy of WHO Director-General on COVID-19; Co-Director of the Imperial College Institute of Global Health Innovation
- Stefan Ingves – Governor, Central Bank of Sweden; Chair, Toronto Centre’s Board of Directors
- Socorro Heysen – Superintendent, SBS Peru; Toronto Centre Board Member
Full transcript
May 26, 2020
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Greetings to our viewers from around the world and thanks for joining us today. I am Babak
Abbaszadeh, the CEO of Toronto's Centre for Global Leadership and Financial Supervision. Welcome to
Supervising the New Normal, which builds on our recent series of webinars that explore the impact of
COVID-19 on financial stability and financial inclusion. On March 11, the WHO, deeply concerned by
both the alarming levels of spread and severity, and the alarming levels of global inaction, declared
COVID-19 a pandemic. Since then, the grim calculus faced by public authorities everywhere has been the
stark choices between life, death, and the economy.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
These are apt words from the Economist Magazine. "Like health experts, treasuries, central bankers, and
supervisors are responding to a fast moving and extraordinary situation. Never before have modern
economies shut down at the blink of an eye. No efforts have been spared on using monitoring and fiscal
policies and regulatory forbearance to soften the landing. Yet the slowdown continues. The longer the
world has to endure a subpar economy, the less likely it is to snap back after the pandemic. Under the
current circumstances of uncertainty, mountain deaths, labels such as recovery and reopening don't
mean much. We are in a new normal."
Babak Abbaszadeh:
In today's episode, we sit down with three prominent experts to explore the new normal. We circulated
their bios to you in advance. Dr. David Nabarro, special envoy of WHO director general on COVID-19. Dr.
Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Swedish Central Bank, and chair of the Toronto Centre. And Socorro
Heysen, Peru's Superintendent of Banks Insurance and Pension Fund administrators, and a board
member of Toronto Centre. Greetings to our speakers.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
I know that many of our viewers have questions for these experts. Please type your questions in the
Q&A tab, which you'll find below the video screen. So let me start with Dr. Nabarro. David, welcome
back. Let's take stock of the situation, where we are. I have a two-part question for you. We hear a lot
about second and third wave of the pandemic. Now that many jurisdictions are reopening, should we be
concerned about these waves? Secondly, the WHO has been criticized for responding slowly at the
outset of COVID-19. Has WHO learned any lessons from the first wave that it would apply to change how
it responds to the next manifestations of COVID-19? Thank you.
Dr. David Nabarro:
So thanks very much indeed. And it's great to be back with everybody again. I'm David Nabarro. And I
just want you to know that if I can be respond to questions during this webinar, I'll happily do so. But
also, don't hesitate to get in touch with me through Babak and others, if there are residual concerns that
you have. And I do want to greet colleagues who are on this panel. The first and most important thing to
say is that this is a new virus. And those of us working in public health have only known about it since
January. And we've been learning about it all the time.
Dr. David Nabarro:
It's not influenza. It's not Ebola. It's a coronavirus. And coronaviruses are not well known. There are only
a few of them around. Actually, one of them, quite common, causes a cold. But others have been quite
rare. And so they are viruses that we need to take very seriously. I encourage everybody to recognize
that because it's new, we have to learn, and because we have to learn, we have to really be open with
each other about what we're seeing. A couple of quick comments therefore.
Dr. David Nabarro:
This virus is now spreading everywhere in our world. It's going into Asia, into Africa, it's going through
Latin America, it's in the Middle East, it's right across Europe into the far East, and of course, it's
throughout North America. And it's a virus that requires all of us to change our behaviors so that we
reduce our risk of being infected. It's a virus that causes high levels of sickness and death amongst older
people and people with other diseases. And it's a virus that I don't believe is going to go away in the
foreseeable future.
Dr. David Nabarro:
There are quite the number of issues that I need to just be very clear on. First is that we have to be able
as humanity to defend ourselves well against this virus in order that our economies can work, in order
that people can be employed, and in order that life can go on. But defending ourselves against the virus
means all of us being aware of what it can do, how it spreads and what action needs to be taken if you
see people with the virus in your own community or nearby.
Dr. David Nabarro:
Most importantly, take it seriously, act quickly, and respond robustly as soon as you have even a few
cases. It doesn't mean locking down your whole economy. It does mean making sure you've got basic
community level public health services working so that people with the disease can be identified quickly
and isolated so that outbreaks do not build up and catch everybody by surprise.
Dr. David Nabarro:
Let me show you just how quickly this can happen. In the space of four weeks, an outbreak can increase
in size a thousand times. And once an outbreak becomes large, then containing it is very difficult. As
we've seen in New York and as we've seen in northern Italy, as we're seeing right now in Brazil. So to
everybody, I say the most important requirement is that as soon as there is disease, there is rapid action
to contain and prevent any outbreak from developing.
Dr. David Nabarro:
Now, the World Health Organization has watched what's happening in different countries around the
world. We've seen numerous examples of countries doing the right thing and acting quickly. New
Zealand, extraordinary results. South Korea, very good. Singapore, excellent. Germany, excellent. But
we've also seen examples of countries that have moved slowly and are still struggling to contain their
COVID outbreaks. I won't name them, but I think you'll know who I'm talking about.
Dr. David Nabarro:
So the biggest lesson of all, the one that I want everybody to hear, is that the virus isn't going to go
away, and as soon as you get it in your community, you must act rapidly to stop outbreaks from building
up. And you must make sure that your health services are properly organized.
Dr. David Nabarro:
Now, the last point, about the World Health Organization. This is an organization that's made up of
public health experts from all over the world. It's a network. And these public health people come
together through the World Health Organization. They share what they're seeing. They're comparing
their experiences. And yes, they learn lessons and apply them as quickly as possible. The World Health
Organization is governed by 194 countries. They're called member states. And they set the rules within
which we operate.
Dr. David Nabarro:
They tell us that we have to take the information that we've received from countries and act on that
information. But they haven't given us the power to go into countries to do forensic examination of
what they're doing. And so we rely on information we receive, and we act incredibly quickly as soon as
we know what's happening. At the beginning of any outbreak, it takes a few days to work things out.
Perhaps sometimes even longer if you're trying to struggle to make sense of the information you
receive, especially something that's new.
Dr. David Nabarro:
But on this particular outbreak, I can say, hand on heart, that we acted extremely rapidly. We followed
the rules that we work under, and we issued warnings, particularly on the 30th of January when we
declared that COVID-19 is a public health emergency of international concern, our highest level of alert.
Dr. David Nabarro:
We said that countries need to act quickly to contain outbreaks. We explained to them what has to be
done. And we said that we were really worried about poorer nations because they lack the economic
capacity to be able to support the small and medium enterprises and to keep people in employment.
And we said to the whole world, beware of the impact that this virus is going to have on poor countries
and poor communities. We don't like being proved right, because our whole mission is to prevent bad
outbreaks and pandemics from happening.
Dr. David Nabarro:
But when they do happen, we want to continue to show the lessens we've learned. And so my final
words are take this virus seriously. It's going to be with us for the foreseeable future. And if you get new
outbreaks, at extremely rapidly to contain them. And if you do that, the rest of the economy and life can
be kept going. Thank you very much.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Thank you, David. That was a very good succinct answer. Also, just a point for our viewers who may not
know, the WHO actually, it's roots go back to the Rockefeller Foundation. And it's an older organization
than the United Nations itself. So in this day and age, when some world leaders are making a sport of
dismantling international leaders, it's important to know that there are these important dedicated
organizations out there. Before I go to our next speaker, I would like to thank our funders, Global Affairs
Canada, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the IMF, USAID, Jersey Oversees
Aid and Comic Relief, without whom we could not achieve our global mission.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Also, we're very delighted that today we have basically 450 or so participants representing 44 countries
ranging all the way from Armenia to Zimbabwe and all the letters and countries in between. And here of
course as well. And a number of agencies. And time zone has not been a barrier. We have participants
from Australia, Indonesia, as well as Latin America, Europe, Africa, and elsewhere. So it's my pleasure to
introduce Dr. Stefan Ingves, the governor of the Central Bank of Sweden, who's also the chair of Toronto
Centre. Stefan, in my opening remarks, I made a point that saying that since the WHO declared
coronavirus a pandemic, the world authorities had to deal with a grim calculus of stark choices between
life, death, and the economy.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
And you are known for your effective handling of complicated financial crises around the world. We're
talking about the new normal. Is it a nostalgic fantasy to want to go back to pre-crisis global financial
standards and regulations post-COVID, or will we be forced to cope with a new normal? Thank you.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Thank you, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to say a few words on this topic. Being a central
banker, when we talked about normal, let's say three, four, months ago, basically what we had in mind
back then was low real interest rates, how long would stay low, and what would happen next, when
things were normalized. But normalized back then had a completely different meaning compared to
what it has today. We also discussed many times higher external debt levels in many emerging market
economies. Now when we think about a new normal, it's a completely different type of new normal.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And this is hard to deal with for economists, because we're struggling with the fact that we are not the
experts in the room. Others know a lot more about what is going on, and we still have to deal with it as
best as we can. Because it's obviously that if you shut down a whole economy in one way or the other,
you will have all sorts of economic issues that you need to deal with. We have tried our best to
compensate for that. And we have done a lot, and we can do more if we have to. But at the same time,
all the things going on are not truly dependent at all, actually, on what we do.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
It's really dependent on what happens with the virus and how that process is being handled. That means
of course also that the economic developments and how this evolves over time is highly dependent on
the severity of the process now, how long it will go on, what happens when various restrictions are
eased, what happens if various restrictions are, let's say, reimposed. And that means that it's hard to
judge today what the new normal would look like. Suppose just for the sake of the argument that
everything were to cease, come to a halt tomorrow, it's over, the pandemic.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Well, it still would take quite some time for trade production and employment to kind of get back to
where we were before this happened. So that's probably a multi process with different difficulties in
different corners of the world and in different countries. Now, when it comes to thinking about these
things, though, most economists are trained to think about it in terms of projections. And actually, one
way of explaining what I do as an economist and a central banker is I'm kind of an economics
weatherman. I'm telling stories about the future and when I tell those stories about the future and
what's going on in various economies, particularly of course my own economy, in a good scenario
people actually believe what I say.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
This time, it's a lot harder, because this is so different compared to what we normally deal with. First of
all, this ability to make various types of projections, that serves us well also under the present
conditions, but one major difficultly and difference now is that it's not only about the economics of it all.
It's also about the projections done by the epidemiologists. And somehow, and that's quite a challenge
actually to get epidemiologists and economists to talk to each other.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Most of those guys who actually build the models, they have a similar background in statistics and math.
It's just that the models in the past have been used for different purposes. And they're not really trained
to talk to each other. But now they have to do that in order to better understand what is going on.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
So a few reflections, then, given where we are and given what happens presently. And this is partly
based on my own experience dealing with the multiple financial crises in my own country and also in a
fairly large number of countries all over the world. First of all, if you want to preserve confidence, you
actually have to be able and willing to communicate. Because if you don't communicate at all, people
make up their own stories about the future and then they head for the exit in one way or the other.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Now, many, many policy makers have learned over the years, find it extremely unpleasant to
communicate and to stay honest. But in the end, at the end of the day, that's the only thing you can do.
That is really, really what we support. Secondly, once you have gotten over that hurdle and actually start
talking about what's going on and what you think will be going on in the future, you have to understand
the vulnerabilities in your own economy. Here, if you don't deal with those vulnerabilities, or if you don't
want to understand them, or if you have not tried to understand them in the past, liquidity issues in the
financial sector will with a fairly high likelihood move into solvency, or rather insolvency issues. So for
that reason, it really, really pays to try to be on top of debts.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Then if things blow up, well, then time is of essence, and you have to decide things. And you have to
forget about the seven decimal and some of the niceties. That means that when you do what you have
to do, some of the things will just flatly be wrong. But it's better to do than not to do. And then if things
are a bit off, then you correct as you go. So gradually actually work yourself through a crisis. And once
you get to the end, then you try to draw some lessons coming out of that.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Then when it comes to vulnerabilities, the financial sector vulnerabilities, they are likely to differ and
differ substantially from country to country. So far, all of these have mostly been dealt with at a national
level when it comes to the economics of it all. Eventually this is going to require various kinds of
international cooperation, and that is absolutely necessary. So far it's been mostly information sharing,
and we have had some small clients, particularly in using the US dollar in the central banking
community. But everything, this will have to move into something more ideally with more global
cooperation than what we have had so far.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Now, some of the issues that come to the fore under the present circumstances. For example, what
happens in the financial sector when you undertake a fairly large number of fiscal measures at different
times, and some of those fiscal measures are actually directed towards the financial sector in one form
or the other. That's one issue. Another issues is how do you use actually various liquidity management
tools. Because after the global financial crisis, for the first time ever at the global level, we started
putting in place various types of liquidity management tools, but y haven't really been used that much,
because all of a sudden this shows up, and you have to actually use those tools and see whether they
seem to work or not.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
At least in the wealthier countries, we highly likely will see a fairly large number of downgrades in the
corporate sector. Then what does that do? What happens if large investors hold a lot of corporate
sector debt and all of a sudden all of that debt is downgraded in one form or the other? Another issue
that will show up and has come to the fore in a number of countries already is how do you deal with
dividend payments, paying bonuses and things like that.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
An issue which is relevant, but at the same time actually highly politically sensitive. One way or the other
it has to be dealt with. Another issue is what happens, particularly in countries with very large financial
markets when asset prices drop up, and if asset prices drop a lot, then you have to deal with margin
calls. And all sorts of other consequences following from that.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
These are the issues that supervisors deal with in many, many parts of the world. But then you also have
the IMF and the World Bank. And the IMF and the World Bank, they essentially end up helping out on
the liquidity side doing at the global level the work that the central bankers tend to do at the national
level in many, many parts of the world.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And so far, if I remember it correctly, the IMF is absolutely inundated with requests for funding in one
form or the other. And that will actually be quite a lot of hard work when it comes to dealing with that.
Now, in all of this, it's of course also helpful, they used to have the Toronto Centre supplying training.
But training has changed completely, because working for the Toronto Centre used to travel the world.
And now you see Babak sitting there with the air phones. And that means that in some sense the whole
thing has to be retooled and we need to find new ways of dealing with this.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
But takes me back to the original question. What does then the new normal really look like? It's hard to
tell. But focusing a bit on the supervising issues. Right now what happens when it comes to both
liquidity and capital adequacy, in many, many parts of the world, the supervisors and the central banks
are allowing their firms in the financial sector to draw down on their liquidity buffers and also on their
capital buffers. LCR standards are being tweaked. Capital buffers are being tweaked. Amortization
requirements are being held back and things like that.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
But what this also means that eventually when economies normalize, it will be very important to
actually bring back those buffers. We should not use this episode, this really, really difficult episode as a
pretext to allow capital charges and liquidity requirements just to fall, fall, fall. Because if history gives us
any guidance, we do know that if we don't build up buffers in the good day, good times, then things will
get really, really much, much worse in bad times, so we have to deal with all these things.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
So I do think that it's important, on the one hand, to change various prudential regulations. But it's also
very important not to change those credential regulations permanently. Eventually, interest rates will
hopefully one day go back up, and when the dust settles both on the central banking side and on the
supervisory side, we will have quite the work set out for us at normalizing in terms of credential
requirements and monetary policy. But right now, we're not there now. We're far from there. So right
now the name of the game is very basic, very simple.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Make sure that everything that's going on now in the real economy does not migrate into the financial
sector. Let's try hard to making things staying outside the financial sector, while at the same time it's our
job to make sure that the financial sector continues working. And on the supervisory side, there is a
whole host of difficult issues to deal with. And on the central banking side, essentially what we do is that
we produce money, and make sure that there is enough money in the system. Thank you.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Stefan, that was a very good way of summing it all together. One thing you mentioned is that it's a
difficultly between economists and epidemiologists to talk to one another. But I can tell you, for the
majority of the people that I know, since we've been in a lockdown, we've had a lot of time to watch the
news and hear all these phrases, so I hear from my mother in law, children, everybody else, things such
as supply shock, monetary policy, flattening the curve, contact tracing. So these things have really
infused into the public domain now.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Now, moving on to Socorro. Socorro, last time you were here with us in late March, Peru had only about
300 cases of COVID-19, no deaths. Today 124,000 cases and 3,600 deaths. That's just one country. So
the stakes are high for everyone, including for you in Peru. So COVID-19 has changed how supervisors
work. In the new normal, how can supervisors ensure they are still able to oversea financial services
firms remotely. Tell us about the opportunities and also the risks please. Thank you.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Thank you, Babak. I cannot stress enough all big challenges that this virus implies, and the lockdown
measures that have been taken to mitigate the impact of the virus. Peru took a very aggressive approach
regarding the lockdown. With exception of a few essential sectors, most of the economy has been
locked down. And we have to face the realities of an emerging economy with a very high informal
sector. In our case, more than 50% of our economy is informally. Which means that they have to work
on a daily basis to make ends meet.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Many people do not have refrigerators so they have to go to the market every day. So in that context,
the lockdown poses a lot of challenges for the people. And that's why you see that in spite of the
lockdown and all the efforts that the government has made to control the virus, that creates this groove
at the beginning, and right now it's starting to stabilize, luckily.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
So everybody has to adapt to this new normal. And of course, the prior strengths of the financial system
and of the regulatory framework and infrastructure are important to help us cope with this situation.
But I think that the most important asset that we may have in this moment is the capacity to adapt. Both
financial institutions and regulators have to adapt to this new situation. Because what is going to
happen is what we have now is the lockdown is being eased, the economy is starting to open. We are
doing it by stages. But many of the things are going to change for a long time.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
So financial institutions are going to have to change their business models and the organization to work
remotely for a very long period of time. And the challenge is going to be especially large for
microfinanced institutions and have business models that are based essentially on direct contact with
their businesses, with the customers. Or known officers going directly to the businesses and contacted
them on a personal basis.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
And this change in the business model that they're going to have to do is going to bring new untested
risks for this micro-finance industry. So that is one of the issues that we're going to have to consider. On
the other hand for us, supervisors. Of course, we're going to have to change too. And we are changing
on a very quick way. We are changing from thinking about working remotely for a short period of time,
to working remotely for a very long period of time, because this is going to last for a while.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
And we are using this challenge as an opportunity to refocus our strategy and accelerate the vision of
transformation of our institution. So what are we doing? Well, first of all, as you all know, supervisors
are all working remotely, and with laptops and access to information systems and the databases. And
this is a challenge in itself for all supervisors. They have to deal with the quality of internet in their
homes. They have to deal with their children, homeschooling, and their partners using the internet
service, and things like that.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
But of course, working remotely poses additional risks. Information security risks that have to be
controlled with strong protocols or mitigated with strong security protocols. So what do we do in this
context, or what are we doing in this context? First, we rely strongly on two supervisory tools. Off-site
supervision and very intensive communication and contact with different levels of management and
staff of banking intuitions and board of bank institutions at the different levels of the supervisory
agency.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
In terms of off-site supervision, we have to revamp it in order to fill in the gaps that are going to appear
because we are not being able to conduct on-site supervision. So what are we doing to do this? Well,
first we have set up a digital platform that allows us to exchange information with financial intuitions.
And through this digital platform, we are exchanging the information that we would normally access on
an on-site supervision. The platform can also be used to update and follow up on supervisory
recommendations and observations.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
In addition, the strong periodic reporting that we have as a supervisors, and we've had for along time,
allows us to conduct a lot of data analysis from off-site, without the need to link into the banks'
databases. And then in addition, to ensure that all material risks are being supervised, we have to use
our rating, internal ratings of our supervisory ratings of financial intuitions to assess whether there is a
need to do focused on-site inspections on a very exceptional basis.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
So we are determining whether the main vulnerabilities of each institution. And not now, but maybe a
month or two from now, we will start conducting on-site visits, but more focused, smaller teams,
shorter visits, to fill in the gaps that cannot be filled off site. And I relate a lot to what Stefan said before
on the sense that we have to correct as we go. We have to keep on going and correct as we go.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
And there are all sorts of new risks that we have to look at. There are of course created risk has
increased significantly, because of the impact on the real impact of the lockdown issues. And we are
going to have to assess credit risk more closely. And liquidity risks, of course, have to be monitored on a
daily basis. Cyber security risks have improved, or have increased and we have to deal with that. There
are all sorts of other things that were minor issues before, but they're threats that we have to deal with
like phishing and all sorts of other fraud attempts on the financial system that need to be controlled.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
So this pandemic is presenting the supervisors with big challenges. We have to be able to concentrate
on the important, on the short realm, without losing sight of the longterm issues. And it means in some
cases postponing the things that are not immediately necessary from the point of view of the
supervisor. It also means that we are going to have to review this on a permanent basis.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Another challenge or risk that we have is the information security. I mean, we can only imperfectly
mitigate the information security risk from working remotely from home. There are many many possible
sources of information technology or information security risks in this context. Then, because we moved
very fast to work remotely, we are using in some cases new processes that are untested. So we have
new supervisory risks from our own new business supervisory model. And there are new risks that we
have to deal with from the way that the institutions are working. So this is basically it, what I would like
to say.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Great. Thank you very much, Socorro. You really did provide waterfront, and these issues are very
complex. For our viewers, I just want to highlight that Socorro touched on a lot of different issues that
deal with business continuity planning for supervisors, how to do your work remotely. Please visit
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We have a lot resources for you to look, review, and think through. And so
we're happy to help with a lot of these issues.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
And for you, Dr. Nabarro, the context here is that supervision is very much a hands on relationship
management issues. So technology can only go so far. And supervisors usually don't get a positive press
release when something happens or they've done something great. But they also get a finger of blame
pointed at them when there's a financial crisis somewhere. So the stakes can't be much higher in our
sector.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Back to you, David. So while we're noticing some tapering off in Europe and US in terms of numbers of
deaths, all the cases seem to be growing, we are seeing rapid escalation of cases and deaths,
unfortunately, in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, just to name a few. Is this just limited to Latin America,
or should we be concerned about the escalation of COVID-19 in developing countries, and what are the
implications? Thank you.
Dr. David Nabarro:
Well, thank you very much, Babak. If action is not taken, this virus is capable of dividing and multiplying,
I should say, at a very rapid rate. Outbreaks increase in size, doubling every two and a half days. Now,
the reason why outbreaks have slowed in western Europe and the Us is because of the impact of the
lockdown, which has reduced the opportunity for transmission to occur. As movement resumes,
transmission will increase again. And the only way it can be stopped is by having capacity at local level in
all societies, to identify people with the disease, and to isolate them, interrupting transmission.
Dr. David Nabarro:
That's going to be the new reality everywhere if we're going to be able to live with this virus. So you're
right. It's spreading extremely rapidly in places where movement restrictions are hard to implement, like
that slum areas in different cities in India. Also, favelas and villas and other close settlements in Latin
America. But it's also spreading in parts of Africa too. It's just that we don't know the full detail because
testing is not available in a widespread way.
Dr. David Nabarro:
What I want to stress is that it's a constant threat everywhere, this virus. And the only way we can stop
it from overwhelming societies is by defending against it. And defending against it means interrupting
transmission as soon as it starts, preventing transmission through physical distancing, through wearing
face protection, through other similar activities, as well as having the capacity when necessary to move
quickly, to limit movement, and actually contain an outbreak when it builds up. That's going to be the
situation everywhere. It's the new normal. Just as you've been discussing through the other panelists,
the new normal in the financial system. It's also a new normal in the way in which all of us are going to
have to live until there's a vaccine that everybody can take that protects against infection. And I
personally don't know when that's going to happen. So we just are going to have to learn to live with
this virus as a reality for all of us, and it applies to every country and every community in the world.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Sobering assessment there. Stefan, moving to you. You are the governor, I guess, of the longest running
central bank in the world, and gold coins were introduced, paper money. Do you think that moving to
digital currencies will be the next natural evolution for central banks in the new normal, especially now
that, A, cash is considered a contaminant, and B, other non-financial institution without public
accountability, such as Facebook, Shopify, are rushing to get in the game to fill the vacuum. Thank you.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Well, first of all, when it comes to money, and we certainly have this debate domestically, and I was in
one store the other day, and they had a big sign saying that we don't take cash due to the coronavirus. I
mean, at least what our medical experts tell us is that cash is not more contaminating or contaminated
than many other things. So in that respect, there's nothing particular about cash. But being with that as
it may, doesn't really matter, I think, how many times we say this. People have a preference for moving
into electronic transactions in one form or the other.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And the moire people are supposed or expected to stay at home or stay away from other individuals,
the more of course you actually push these transactions into various electronic forms. Now, when you
do that, that raises many many fascinating issues when it comes to money, or using the plural, monies.
Because it kind of takes us back to the 1800s. And why am I saying that? Because in the 1800s,
everything was on paper. Now, moving forward, and this will of course be different in different parts of
the world, nothing will be on paper. So everything will be, or most of it will be electronic in one form or
the other.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And then there will be, of course, differences in different parts of the world, depending on to what
extent you have the skills needed to run everything in an electronic way. But that also raises age-old
issues when it comes to money and payments. And as you mentioned, Babak, you have various private
sector initiative, say Facebook Libra or Bitcoin, or whatever the name of all these new phenomenon that
show up. If history gives us any guidance, everything the public sector is going to have to get involved in
one form or the other.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And eventually, a good chunk of this, in one form or the other, will revert back to central banks. Because
central banks, they are the ultimate back stop. And normally when you produce new monies, again
using the plural, in the private sector, you end up producing too much of it. And then you lose credibility
and you have all sorts of very very difficult issues to deal with that. Unfortunately, on the public sector
side, there is also a tendency to produce too much of the money as well. And then you sort of lose it in
that respect there as well. But eventually, yes, my view is that central banks will have to move with the
times.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And if technology changes, it won't work to use yesterday's technology. But it will be quite different in
different corners of the world. And this will be also reflecting a bit on the work of the Toronto Centre.
Very very important when it comes to financial inclusion. Because financial inclusion will change shape
and form when you don't go to a branch office anymore, because you do your business, you make your
payments, deposit money using your cellphone or a fairly cheap computer. And that, of course, means
that on the central banking side and on the supervisory side, when it comes new technologies, we have
to make sure that everybody can use these new technologies, and that they are cheap. Thank you.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Thank you very much, Stefan. And now, Socorro, this is an interesting set up for your question, which is
crisis always put a spotlight on the issues of financial inclusion and gender equality, including literacy,
access, and so forth. So is there a silver lining in that the response to this pandemic could accelerate and
broaden the digitization of payments for the benefit of the poor? And how can supervisors and
regulators help respond or be vigilant about it? Thank you.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Well, yes. Thank you very much for the question. And I'm sure this situation is going to accelerate the
digitalization of all the financial system and the economies. It is happening as we speak right now. And
the digitalization of payments is going to be probably one of the most important issues. Particularly in
the past, digital payments and transactions have been carried out more by relatively well off citizens,
younger people, in urban areas. But it is starting to expand to other areas. Other people are finding that
this is useful, that having a bank account or an electronic money wallet is useful for avoiding contagion,
long lines, saving time, conducting transactions on a more safe way.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
So I think it is going to be important. Peru is, as I said before, a highly informal economy, with very very
intensive use of cash transactions. And over the past 10 years, there have been a lot of efforts by
regulators and by financial intuitions to introduce digital payments. And this has been happening.
Regulatory efforts have included electronic money regulation, crowdfunded regulation, the
establishment of bank agents in small businesses. All these things have helped financial inclusion over
the past years.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
But electronic money didn't pick up, or it had some mixed results, I think, until more recently. We are
very, very, very low percentage of the population using digital transactions. But a lot of the population
using, for instance, this bank agents. Because the bank agents are convenient for most of the people. In
the context of COVID, the Peruvian government did some cash transfers to the people to try to mitigate
the impact of the lockdown, of not being able to work.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
So the government granted subsidies and used the banking system as the first way to distribute the
money. And what we had was at the beginning, very very long lines of people waiting to cash the
government subsidy. As soon as we saw this, we changed some of the regulations to ease the use of
electronic money for these purposes. First we had to increase the limits, because we had very small
transaction limits that made it very difficult to use electronic money on a more intensive basis. We
increased the limits for individual transactions and for cumulative transactions.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
We also changed a little bit the regulations regarding the collateral that the electronic money providers
have to use to operate with electronic money. And all these changes have been very well received. And
now it's starting to pick up. Electronic money is starting to be more used in the distribution of
government subsidies, for instance. It is very early to know whether this is going to have a lasting
impact. But they're encouraging news so far.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Thank you. Very good, thank you. And also, just to put it in perspective, we firmly believe here at
Toronto Centre that it's so important to develop those platforms you were talking about. But it goes
beyond that. It's about having the proper regulatory framework, supervisory capacity to make sure
abuses don't happen, while at the same, time, if supervisors need to get out of the way, they know how
to get out of the way, but make sure that the vigilance in the system is not compromised. David, there's
a question here, it's an interesting one, and it's something that I actually had in mind, and you and I
briefly touched base on it.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
There's a lot of interest on a vaccine. We read a lot about the vaccine, Oxford trial here or there. There's
this assumption that once the vaccine is discovered, tomorrow we're going to go back to new normal.
But I think it's a little bit more complicated than that. Could you please talk about a distributional justice
issues around it, and versus all the scientific things that you know. How do we, who are so anxious about
the new normal, understand how vaccines will come into play in this new world?
Dr. David Nabarro:
Thank you, Babak. And thanks to the questioner. I'm really hopeful that a vaccine against this novel
coronavirus will be found and found quickly, and shown to be safe and at the same time effective. But
I'm also quite cautious. You know, we've been looking for a vaccine that will immunize people against
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, for more than two and a half decades. And billions of dollars have been
spent on the hunt, and one has not yet been found.
Dr. David Nabarro:
And I think that's just a remainder, when you're trying to develop a vaccine against a virus, you're taking
advantage of biological processes inside an individual's body in order to build up resistance to the virus.
What you do is you mimic the virus by creating some extract from the virus. You inject it into people. It
doesn't cause the disease. But it does lead to antibodies being developed. And then you hope, and I
have to stress hope, that this will be sufficient, to protect against infection by the virus, should you
encounter it as you go about your life.
Dr. David Nabarro:
Okay, so the first thing you have to do is to have what we call a candidate vaccine, which means an
extract of this COVID virus that you can actually inject in people to invoke an immune response. Well,
there are some candidates, and they're quite well publicized. You just mentioned some of them, Babak.
So that part, at least, is moving ahead quite nicely.
Dr. David Nabarro:
The second stage is to make absolutely certain that whoever you give this vaccine to, you've got a very
low likelihood of any kind of adverse reaction. Because the last thing you want is a vaccine that causes
problems, because that will immediately lead people to say, "Oh, well I don't want to have it." And then
the second thing you've got to do is make sure that the antibodies that are produced by the vaccine
actually protect against infection over a long period of time. Because it's no good having partial
protection, or having protection that is only lasting, say, for half an year or something like that.
Dr. David Nabarro:
Testing safety, testing efficacy takes time. And so I'm anticipating that it will be about 18 months before
all the due diligence is done, all the necessary trials are done and the safety and efficacy of these new
vaccines is demonstrated. Of course there are people talking about cutting corners and trying to find
quicker ways of doing it, to which I say, yeah, by all means look at cutting corners. But remember, the
reason why we have all these steps to go through in developing a vaccine is simply because the last
thing that any of us want to do is to do harm.
Dr. David Nabarro:
And then the third step, and your main question, is okay. So you have a vaccine. Now can you produce
at least 7.8 billion doses? Now can you get the vaccine to everybody, and not end up in a situation that
you've got a nice vaccine but only those nations who've got plenty of wealth can actually have the
vaccine, and others somehow get to the end of the tube. We've had that before when dealing with
other challenges.
Dr. David Nabarro:
And that's where global solidarity really counts. That's where nations working together and agreeing to
protocols that ensure that those who most need the vaccine can be first in line, whilst at the same time
ensuring that nobody is forced in any way at all to have a vaccine unless somebody somewhere really
decides that the approach they want to take. But I'm really against any kind of forcing, because that just
provokes people who are upset about vaccines to actually get even more upset and resist it. So unless
world leaders can come together and agree on a protocol for ensuring fair shares of any new vaccines, I
think we'll have some major rows. And I'm very keen to encourage that it is distributional justice, as you
say. Because otherwise it will be really unfair. Thank you.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Absolutely. There's no point in having a vaccine available and to only be available for the privileged few.
So thank you. And then this other question, Dr. Nabarro, goes to you, only because I know your time is
limited. This is from one of our colleagues in Nigeria. My question to David is the number of deaths in
African countries compared with the developed countries is smaller, apparently due to the level of
testing in African countries, thus bringing erroneous complacency. Don't you think it is better to
consider the ratio of death to the number of infections rather than the number of infections?
Dr. David Nabarro:
So first of all, thank you for the question. I mean, there have been real hopes that this virus in foreign
nations, with their different age structure, night have fewer complications. We hoped also that perhaps
when it hot areas, the virus would spread less easily. But I think you're right. This virus is causing major
challenges. Now, also you're right in that the actual number of cases is unclear, because testing is not
widespread. And death records are not well kept. In Africa, people's cause of death is rarely identified.
Dr. David Nabarro:
And so I totally agree with you that complacency is not a good thing. But at the same time, the figures
for what's happening in Africa are very hard indeed to interpret. I would like to suggest that everybody
everywhere just recognizes that this is a dangerous virus, that we all have to take it seriously. It's of
course has to be put alongside other dangers that we have, in communities in Nigeria, there are many
other infectious threats.
Dr. David Nabarro:
So you shouldn't say COVID is the only one. But COVID is one of many health threats that have to be
taken into account in all populations. And we do encourage everybody in their communities to take it
seriously, because it's only at community level that we can deal with it effectively. And yes, I agree with
you that unfortunately the figures for numbers of cases, or even numbers of people tested to be
positive and deaths in different parts of the world now are unfortunately inaccurate, simply because the
reporting is incomplete. So thanks again for your question. And I wish you well, and all the people in
Nigeria, I wish you well as you do your best to learn to live with this virus and to limit the damage that it
causes.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Thank you very much, David. Just for our audience, we're going to go for another 20 minutes. I know
David will have to leave. So David, whenever you need to leave, that's fine. But we're very appreciative
of the fact that you've been here. If you're able to hang on longer, great. But I'm going to leave it to you.
This next question goes to Governor Ingves. Stefan, you emphasized the importance of ensuring the
health crisis does not migrate into the financial sector. Is it not the case that the sector is already feeling
the effects?
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
That is certainly the case. But this crisis is different in the sense that when you deal with a financial crisis,
normally it starts with some kind of a microeconomic imbalance in one form or the other. And then you
also have all sorts of issues within the financial sector itself. This time it's different, because here you
have an event which is completely unexpected, at least if you are an economist. And it sort of is
completely, it starts completely outside the financial sector. But clearly, if the general economic
developments will be such that various economies in the world come to a halt or to a standstill for a
long long time, then eventually all these things will move into the financial sector as well.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And that is, of course, one of the issues that we will have to deal with. Most central banks in the world
today are providing plenty of money to the financial sector. So no one is in most countries going to run
out of money in the short run. But eventually, if this goes on, because let's say it takes several years,
nonperforming loans will increase. And then we will have a debate about accounting rules, because we
always have a debate about accounting rules when nonperforming loans increase.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And there are always those who are in favor of saying that something should be accounted for at a 100
when it's actually worth 25. And then there are others who say, if it's worth 25, you're in debt already.
You need to do something about it. So that debate certainly is going to come back. But we really have to
do our best to try to deal with these issues before they sort of massively move in to the financial sector.
And the best thing we can do, I think, in most economies is to make sure the macroeconomic
developments get reasonably back on track.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
But when I say so, I'm very very mindful of the fact that I don't pass judgment at all on the pandemic and
what comes out of it on that side. And that's why it's so hard to deal with these issues. Because when it
comes to dealing with a pandemic. Many issues are moral. You deal with value judgements. And that
has to then in one way or the other to be combined with what's going on in the economy. So nothing of
this is sort of easy to deal with.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
I'm also quite convinced that when growth is slowing, or actually growth is being negative, because
that's the way it is happening today because economies are shrinking, then all sorts of known
vulnerabilities will resurface. And problems that people have actually known about for some years can't
be hidden or denied. You can't be in denial anymore. So eventually you're just going to have to deal with
it. And that will be, of course, very very tricky. But as I said, did not start in the financial sector. And we
have to be vigilant about on the supervisory side, but also on the bank restructuring side, making sure
that what's going on does not make the financial sector as such stall completely. Thanks.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Thank you. Stefan, it's very interesting, I was listening to you, objective. My impression is, going back to
the great financial crisis, as complicated, as devastating that was, the fight was simpler, in the sense that
you had culprits. You had the financial sector as the culprits, the greedy ones. And people like you and
your colleagues and Socorro, you were the first responders, you were the essential workers, you were
the fighting ones.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
But this pandemic, the interesting thing about it is it's such a universal experience for all of us. And all of
us are trying to make sure we are doing what we can to stabilize the situation. That's about all we can
do, right, until we get, as you said, the vaccines and all that. Socorro, I'm going to pass the next question
to you. You very eloquently talked about the challenges that supervisors are facing in terms of
postponing some activities and how to do things off-site. This question is more strategic. What longer
term changes, if any, should or must financial regulators and supervisors make to their policies,
processes, and procedures, as a result of this pandemic? What are you learning today have can be
helpful in the long term, assuming that we're living in an uncertain world? I guess that's the spirit of this
question.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Well, first of all, if the business models are going to move to a more digital way of operating for all
financial institutions, a lot more attention is going to have to be paid to information security and to
cyber risks and things like that. So that is an area that it was already important before, but it's, I mean,
it's importance has grown exponentially in this new normal. So that's the first thing.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Then there are all sorts of things, of ways in which risks could come to the financial system that we had
not thought of. Of course, we never thought about continuity planing for a pandemic before, at least not
in Peru, so we are going to have to be more creative with related to continuity scenarios. So that's the
second thing. The third thing has to do with strengthening off-site supervision and learning to do more
intensive, more effective off-site supervision for the longer term.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
And then there is the issue of how are you going to deal with the short term needs to reduce some of
the prudential regulations and the long term needs of putting them back in place? It is very important
that when you loosen some of the prudential regulations, you have the capacity to put them back and
build them up again. At least at this time, there is not enough information to create a timeline, but very
soon we're going to have to think about those issues. So never lose sight of the long term.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Thank you. And Stefan, I'm going to pass this question, next one to you. Can you please say something
more about how your own organization, I guess in this case, where it's a bank, have been affected by
the pandemic and the policies implemented to mitigate it? Which functions and activities are
prioritized? Some activities and functions that are put on hold?
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Well now, of course, we had all our budgets and our planning, all of those sort of normal things that you
have. And then let's say mid-March we realized that the world is changing and the world is changing
completely. And then based on that, we fairly soon also came to the conclusion that people will have to
work from home. So presently, about 75%, roughly 75, maybe some days 80% of our staff are working
from home. And when you do that, then as you can see, my background in my office at home, it really
really is a crash course using Skype, Zoom, WebEx, whatever the name of these things that you use
nowadays. And all of a sudden everybody had to figure out how to do these things, and then you run
into all sorts of issues when it comes to bandwidth and doing things in ways that are completely new.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And then it has also on the HR side put some very new and different demands on us, because you
actually have to talk to people when they're working from home. And you must not forget about them.
And you have to get in touch with your staff. And then you also have to have a system where you rotate
staff members into the office once in a while. Now this is kind of a rhythm that we have found presently.
But it hasn't been all that easy. And as I said, it has put quite a lot of demands on us and on our IT
department. And it also so happens, and that's what happens in the real world, that exactly when this
happened, we were also going through a process where we were moving from one IT services provider
to another.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And that of course creates all sorts of IT cybersecurity vulnerabilities that you have to deal with at the
same time, while of course when you do that, it just won't work to have all systems being down, let's
say, for 24 hours or something like that. So that's on how we are running things. Then of course, in
terms of doing things, we have very rapidly and decisively actually expanded our balance sheet, because
we're buying government debt, we're buying corporate debt, we're lending to banks, and they're
expected to lend to corporates. We're buying mortgage bonds. We're doing all sorts of things that most
people never ever expected to do, particularly those who are more, let me call it theoretically inclined.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And the models just don't help us anymore, because this is in real time. And then you just have to
decide what to do and what not to do. And also, another aspect of the work that I'm participating in, is
that all my travel is gone, and it used to be that I traveled quite a lot. And also went to all sorts of
international meetings in different parts of the world. Now everything is over the phone or Skype, Zoom,
and all these things. And it's different. But we do our best to keep things running.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
But similarly to what we were before. You have to make sure that you deal with cybersecurity. You have
to make sure that you deal with your IT systems. And you have to speed up your own educational
process in such a way that you don't use a ballpoint pen and a telephone anymore. You have to adapt
using all these modern stuff.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Of course, Stefan, it's the issue of the video fatigue or screen fatigue. And I think we probably need to
form a support group, but unfortunately we can't do it over video, right? So something to think about.
The next one is for you, Socorro. Mr. Socorro suggested that supervisors concentrate on what is
important and postpone what is not necessary. Can you please give us some examples in each category?
Thank you.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Everything is important. Well, let's see. We had a lot of regulations that we had issued recently that we
were developing and we were planning to issue. So the first thing that we have done is we have phased
out the implementation of new regulations by financial intuitions, because basically the financial
intuitions are now concentrated on dealing with their IT departments or anything that requires the IT
department of a financial institution is different to implement now. Because they have to concentrate
on the most basic needs of being able to operate in the new environment. So we are phasing out many
of the new regulations, the ones that we were planning to issues, and the ones that we had already
issued. So that is one clearcut case.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Then we are concentrating what is important now. Well, credit risk. Sufficiency of provisioning is going
to be a constant issue for the next year, two, three years. We're going to have to concentrate a lot on
understanding what is the value of these portfolios. So credit risk, sufficiency of provision, solvency of
financial intuitions, and liquidity of financial intuitions are the most important issues. You cannot stress
enough the importance of these issues. Of course, you cannot lose sight of cyber security and continuity
issues and information security issues related to the new business models.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
But also, the key areas of importance new developments and longterm plans are the things that are
being sort of postponed or being carried out by staff that are not involved in the trenches. So those are
the basic.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Thank you. Stefan, this next question is for you. There has been a reduction of money velocity due to the
preferences for digital payments, i.e. electronic transfers, credit cards, debit cards, etcetera. What is the
impact you expect in the immediate term on price levels inflation due to that phenomena?
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Well, that's kind of a bit of a technical technical thing. I really don't think that it matters. People are
moving out of cash and moving into electronic payments doesn't really matter when it comes to the
inflation rate. Ultimately, what matters is how you run monetary policy, the size of the balance sheet of
the Central Bank and things like that. And we do know that velocities kind of varies over time. So I really
don't think it's from a monetary policy point of view that difficult an issue.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
What one has to do, of course though, running a central bank, which is the same on the supervisory
side, is to understand what structural change is taking place within this financial sector itself. Because
you really need to understand how the financial sector and how it operates changes gradually over time.
And then what that implies when it comes to what you are expected to do running monetary policy or
dealing with the supervisory issues. And nothing is constant. And we do know that we have a number of
new players. And all those new players are trying to use new technologies. Some of them are invented
domestically, and some of them will show up from abroad in one form or the other.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
And then you just have to understand what's going on and go with the flow. A very kind of non-technical
answer to this question is to say the following, that when everything is electronic, it becomes harder and
harder to answer the question, where is my money? Is it in the cloud? Or it's the server? And things like
that. And those issues present us, on the supervisory and central banking side, with completely new
challenges. Because we're trained to think about money in a very sort of physical way. And all the
physical aspects of money will soon be gone in one form or the other.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Thank you. And Socorro, I'm going to give this last question to you. We don't have a lot of time left. And
it's a big question. So hopefully you can find one point of it that you can just give us some insights on.
How to maintain a balance between prudential supervision and the relaxation of measures that have
been taken temporarily so that financial intuitions can face the COVID-19 and avoid a high deterioration
in the portfolios and solvency.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Well first, I mean, you are facing very difficult trade offs as a regulator. We are facing difficult trade offs
as a regulator. On the one hand, maintaining all the regulation, regulation, regulations and requirements
the way we are, could force the regulator to close down bank and financial intuitions that could if given
a little time, can recover and can raise the capital and can do well.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
But on the other hand, if you relax the prudential regulations too much, you may end up with
institutions that do not have enough capital and are operating basically on a very very high risk for the
depositors' money and the creditors' money. So those two need to be balanced, as the question posed.
And it's an extremely difficult balance. And you are going to need to be looking at it constantly to be
sure you're not making mistakes, and revising it constantly.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
In the short term, what we have done is we have allowed some leeway on provisioning for financial
institution to facilitate the reprogramming of loans. Because it's very difficult to assess the capacity to
repay of debtors that are in the middle of a lockdown. But that has to be a very short-term thing. Very
very quickly, I mean, in the next few months, I believe provisions will have to reflect what the value of
the loans. And then you will end up with probably intuitions that do not generate enough revenue to
constitute the required provisions, and we are going to have to do probably lowering some of the capital
requirements. We have already started lowering some of the capital requirements, like there's the
cyclical components or the cyclical provisioning components were the first ones to go.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Lowering other capital requirements is much more controversial, because basically they are more
tailored to individual risks of individual intuitions. But in the context of allowing the system to continue
to operate, you can do a lowering of some of these requirements, but being sure that you have enough
capital for the system to operate, like a minimum level of capital for the system, of good quality capital
for the system to continue operation. It is essential that a minimum level of good quality capital is
maintained by all institution. And then you will need to implement or give time for the intuitions to raise
the additional or the higher levels of capital in different ways from their own shareholders, from third
party private shareholders. Or if needed, in some cases, even government assisted programs. But this is
what is going to be needed.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
That's great. Thank you very much. We're coming to basically the end. We could have gone probably
another hour or so, but you know, everyone's time is very precious. A couple of things we quickly
learned in the new normal is correct as you go, learn as you go, make sure that the systems you're
working on are vigilant, focus on the priorities. We were blessed with very strong, eloquent speakers.
Thank you, Socorro. Thank you, Stefan. And of course, thank you to Dr. Nabarro, who had to leave
earlier. He is in the front lines, so to speak. But you're also in a different front line.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Now, every night in Toronto at 7:30 p.m., people bang pots and pans to show their support for their
health workers. I think we need to bang our calculators and iPhones to show support for the people how
are maintaining the soundness and safety of our financial system. And also, a big thank you to Diana
Bird and Demet Çanakçı of our team who are working very hard tirelessly behind the scene to
put these seminars together. So thank you, everyone. And we left a lot of questions on the table. Just to
let you know, Socorro and Stefan, as I was reading the questions, the question numbers were coming
down. We're leaving 22 questions on the table.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
So that's the problem of the moderator. But these questions are not going to go to waste. We're going
to keep them. One way or another, we'll try to address them either through our courses, through future
webinars, or if we have another chance with these speakers, we'll bring them back to you. Thank you,
everyone. Take care, goodbye, and stay safe and healthy. Bye.
Dr. Stefan Ingves:
Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye now. Bye now.
Babak Abbaszadeh:
Bye, bye.
Socorro Heysen Zegarra:
Thank you very much.