Speeches by Glen.

“I know that. Do you think it will get to 15%?”

“Can I ask about the gap between the 13% and the 15%? What accounts for that? There should be more latitude to do more borrowing, and they don’t.”

“So the fact that in reality, major UK institutions have an effective requirement that is closer to 14.25% than to 13% is just a function of them not operationalising risk management appropriately, is it?”

“Mr Kroszner, you were getting animated. Did you want to come in?”

“And that is how you get out of jail on this subject.”

“At least he’s honest.”

“Can I come on to the decision about lowering the capital requirement from 14% of risk-weighted assets to 13%? I think there are two broad sets of views. There are those who ask where the benefit goes—to the banks and their shareholders or to the economy as a whole. There is also still significant dissent among many ban…”

“So we should go back to the banks on that? Nathanaël Benjamin indicated assent.”

“I look forward to having them.”

“To them, it feels as though there will be a move forward in one area, but then, for example, Sam Woods did not include the exclusion of unencumbered gilts when looking at the leverage ratio denominator.”

“So it is a work in progress.”

“Mr Kroszner, can I ask you about what the banks have told us about this apparent gap with the US, which the Governor pushed back on? Some of them have said to us that UK banks now face a 190 basis point capital premium compared with their US competitors. You can dispute the quantum of that, but do you recognise anythin…”

“Do you think we will ever get to a point where it will be apples and apples, you can make a reasonable comparison and we will stop receiving all these representations from the banks?”

“Can I ask one more question on the net effect on the banks and their shareholders, and the economy as a whole? The narrative they bring to us is that they can get access to more money to lend to grow the economy, yet we see banks doing quite well in these circumstances. Do you have any views on how we should review the…”

“Who can help me understand a slightly complementary view to that among the witnesses this morning?”

“Turning to the decision to ease the leverage ratio by 0.2 percentage points, I want to try to understand the range of views that existed on that, because it appears to have been a split decision. The quote is: “Most judged that the benefits of the proposed changes outweighed the costs.” It would be useful to understand…”

“And that is active—it happens?”

“Can you give an example of that?”

“When banks look at their effective situation, they tell us that they never get to that amount because of all those add-ins and overlays that occur. Although I understand the aspiration to simplify and have a single buffer, the reality is that, because of their hesitancy about the implications of not doing this in the r…”

“Please can we explore your attitude—or policy or mindset—to stablecoins? There has been a draft proposal to impose a temporary limit on the ownership, and you have the £40 billion issuance cap. I wonder whether it is viable for anyone to issue with that, so what sort of work has been done on that? Could you also charac…”