 Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Deutsche Bundesbank, the European Central Bank, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, I would like to thank you for participating in the fourth joint conference on CCP risk management. A very interesting conference day with lively debates on current and future challenges in CCP risk management is coming to an end. I now have the honor of concluding today's conference. Although we can look back on what has certainly been an eventful year for CCPs, recent developments surrounding Russia's invasion of Ukraine overshadow everything. Who could ever have imagined that we would see another war in Europe for most of us that was a very distant and absurd idea? While the US and other states are adopting a wrath of unprecedented sanctions against Russia, the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is taking its course. My thoughts are with the Ukrainian people and their immeasurable suffering. And indeed, this crisis comes immediately in the wake of the pandemic, with its risks, challenges, and unexpected workload, such as the development of new vaccines within a very short space of time. Now geopolitical complexities have gained the upper hand, bringing with them economic consequences, for instance, energy prices, which were already strained, are continuing to rise, producing high volatility in financial markets. In uncertain times, chords for reliability and stability become louder still. Robust crisis and risk management appears to be more important than ever. This applies, in particular, to CCPs, which are playing a key role in keeping the financial system safe and steady. For this reason, we also came together today to discuss the right way to handle CCP's risk management. Recent developments confirm and demonstrate, once again, the importance of working and standing together. And we should not forget, our current focus on the war should not distract us from another challenge that is already at our doorstep, global heating. With this in mind, allow me to briefly walk through today's topics and highlight a few key takeaways that deserve further consideration and elaboration, both within the regulatory community and the financial services industry. Today's conference focused on two broader topics covered in separate sessions. First, extending central clearing and second, climate change risks in financial markets. Our first topic revolved around extending central clearing. Looking back at the pandemic, CCPs have played a key role in stabilizing financial markets. They upheld trust among market participants and maintained a steady market supply. And it seems that CCPs are functioning smoothly and contributing to stability and security in the current situation. Let us hope that it stays that way. This continuity was the main reason for the introduction of mandatory clearing of OTC derivatives in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, where it became clear that CCPs could make a valuable contribution to a resilient financial market. Hence, there's a recurring discussion about enhancing central clearing. For instance, by extending the range of market participants or the types of products it might include. Regarding market participants, more and more voices in Europe and the US are saying that the existing CCP access arrangements need to be overhauled so that more participants can be included. This would be consistent with the G20 objectives to reduce concentration risks and enhance the portability of client positions while making a valuable contribution to strengthen the resilience of the overall financial system, where underpinned the introduction of mandatory clearing for OTC derivatives. Another way to expand central clearing may be to widen the clearing obligation to cover more product types. In the US, there have been courts to make central clearing mandatory for US treasuries as these products perform an important function for financial stability. However, new regulatory requirements and actions are often necessary to put such changes into practice. To support such initiatives, the use of new technologies like distributed ledges could also make a significant contribution to more efficient clearing and settlement processes and consequently reduce CCP's costs. Nevertheless, the technology is still in its infancy and we have to consider that any use of new technologies should consider not just the benefits but also the potential risks to financial stability. When it comes to broadening access to CCP's in the market, there are still some obstacles which need to be eliminated beforehand. Although the fee models for CCP's have been improved upon, central clearing still seems to be uneconomical and for smaller market participants as CCP's participants have to meet very strict risk management requirements. Therefore, we should do more to improve the attractiveness of the excess models in general. And talking about new risks that CCP's need to consider going forward, climate change risks have become increasingly important. While climate effects are becoming more and more visible, global efforts to tackle climate change risks are also on the rise. Commandery CCP's have been primarily affected by recent developments like the spikes in energy prices and market volatility in the context of current tensions between Russia and Ukraine which challenged CCP's stress test models significantly. Despite the high levels of market turmoil, CCP risk models appear to have performed well on the whole. While this is welcome news, CCP's need to continuously review their model performance. Given the potential impact of climate risks on financial markets and consequently on CCP's, all CCP's need to evaluate how to integrate climate change related risk adequately into their risk models. By taking climate risks more into account, CCP's in their capacity as intermediaries could play a role in adequately mitigating the transfer of climate risk to financial markets. The journey has just begun. Also, a lot has been achieved. There is still a lack of uniform standards applicable worldwide. Since climate change is in a global issue, local standards and measurements need to be aligned around the world. It is up to governments and regulators to make sure that an assessment of climate risk takes place in an organized manner and to provide the necessary framework. In order to do so, I see also an ample scope for further analytical work. Much remains to be done, but I'm sure that together we can shape the future of tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, thank you again for taking part in today's conference and making it such a success. I'm convinced that today's conference has delivered what it set out to achieve. However, it is not the institutions themselves that make things work. It is the people behind big names. My special thanks go out to the organization team from the ECB, the Chicago Fed and my Bundesbank colleagues. Thank you for your attention. Have a nice evening and I hope to see you again next year.