 What does it take to keep Europe's biggest banks safe? A great team and, of course, a wise leader. For the past five years, Andrea Ria was the head of European banking supervision and is now handing over the baton to Claudia Buch at the end of the year. You're listening to the ECB podcast, bringing you insights into the world of economics and central banking. My name is Stefania Secola. As President Christine Lagarde said in her recent speech, European banking supervision is an essential piece of a complete monetary union. Expectations were high when the ECB took over supervision of the biggest banks in Europe almost at ten years ago. And a lot has been achieved. We have a strong banking sector in Europe today. It was not always easy and straightforward. But faced with severe tests, our supervisors have exceeded expectations. Our President Christine Lagarde sat down with supervisory board chair Andrea Ria at the recent ECB Forum on Banking Supervision. And they looked back at his eventful term. She asks him about his best and worst memories. He also reflects on the most difficult decision he had to make, his legacy, and his wishes for the future of European banking supervision. Let's listen to their conversation. Good afternoon to you, Andrea. I think a test of your fame, popularity and success is actually the room. Not everybody can see it because a lot of people are watching from online. And the room is full, which is quite staggering after a day and a half of all this hard work and great debate. Because you came, of course. No, Robby. No, no, no, no, no, no. So you've been showered with compliments like hardly anybody I have seen, even upon leaving. And I'm going to ask you some really quick questions, and you're going to have to respond quickly as well. So what is your best memory? I would say the start in town hall. I mean, meeting with the staff, listening to them, understanding what was that was working well and what maybe needed to be changed. Okay, what's your worst memory? Worst memory. Well, I mean, we all have bad memories of the pandemic, of course. But I would say, honestly, that the most tense period has been the spring this year. I mean, now everybody has been saying, well, the European banks have done, how good we have been. Let's be honest, I mean, we have been very scared about what was happening in the spring. And when you see deposits flowing out of the banks, I mean, as a supervisor, you start really freaking out. And so that was tough. What was your most difficult decision? Well, in these five years, of course, the decision on dividends has been very difficult and painful. Because, of course, what I would have liked was that the banks themselves had decided to show some restraint and refrain from paying, distributing dividends and doing buybacks in a moment in which there was such a radical uncertainty on what was coming. No, I mean, we had an unprecedented shock. We are seeing projections of GDP, negative growth, 14%, 15%. So, I mean, and still, you know, while moral creation seems to work in a national environment, you know, European Union is still a rules-based type of community. So if you don't come with a hammer of a recommendation, things don't happen. So that was a difficult decision. But I think that although some people also in this room I know disagrees, I still think it was a good decision. So did you have to come down with a hammer? We did, yes. We had to come with the recommendation. How did you use the hammer? Well, I mean, it was simply the basically a recommendation. I mean, agreeing on a recommendation, deciding, issuing, and this delivery. And I remember honestly, let's say, you know, you don't like to use the... I don't like to use this hard power. I would have liked much more the soft power of, you know, banks seeing the value in doing that. But eventually I remember that there was a respective observer of, you know, banking issues that tweeted, you know, ECB recommendation not to distribute. All banks say, yes, sir. EOPA says insurance companies, you should not pay dividends. And also from some national authorities, insurance pay dividends in several countries, not all countries, but in some countries. So that conveyed in my view, and it's not a criticism of EOPA, of course, that did a very good job in pushing that. But anyway, I mean, the point was that, you know, that was a very visual, you know, representation that the banking union was there and delivering, you know, and... So the banks did not disappoint you at that point? No, no. Well, disappointed me because they didn't follow moral situation. I would have liked that. But anyway, eventually, of course, when we came with the recommendation, they did what they were asked to do. Those who know you well would argue that at that point in time it was a test of your decisiveness and you lived up to the test. Would you agree? Yes, I must say, I remember very well when I started, let's say, the last phase in 2011 of this working supervision, you know, when I became chair of the EBA, I remember the interview with Michel Barnier, you know, when he was selecting me. First of all, it was one of the most difficult interviews ever because even before, I was told that Michel Barnier didn't want to do the interview in English. So I said, can you do the interview in French? He said, oh, my God, I cannot. That was a bit of a... But eventually, he went and managed. But when he came out, he said, you know, you will have to be very strong in this. You will have to show decision. You will have to show, you know, spine. And it was tested very, very, very early on. And I learned it's difficult, but as was saying in this job, you need it. And so I'm glad that you say it. I think that, you know, I don't shy away when you need to make a decision. No, absolutely. When that was on your mind and you decided that it was the right way to go, given that moral suasion was not working. What was it like? Well, all right, all the members are shaking here. No, no, the boardroom, we have to remember ourselves, was my, you know, my room at home because we're all working remotely. No fear, yeah. So, no, but I would, let's say, I think the process was, first, let's say, all the discussion individually with the bankers and then with the European Bank in Federation that organized the meeting with the banks that didn't go as I expected. But then I discussed bilaterally with most members and then we had a meeting. And eventually, I mean, there were different views around the table, but I think, and I was discussing with the board this in our last meeting, let's say, we have been very good at coming at consensus. Also, when we don't have agreement, when there has been such a good quality of discussion amongst us that eventually everybody can leave with something that is seen as having strength. So the decision was not difficult. I mean, I had some difficult discussion with some individual members, some of them will remember it, but eventually the decision was not difficult. So what tools did you have that you wish you would have used? Not necessarily in this particular instance, but in general. You have a toolbox, you have used many of them, other tools that you wish you had used a bit more and other tools that you wish you had had, but you didn't have. I'm thinking about Claudia who is going to take over from you, so she also will appreciate the advice. I mean, the remark I was making before on moral creation is an important one. I mean, we like this tool. So we do have it with individual banks. So our supervisory teams, when they engage with individual banks, they have leverage and they can convince the bank to do things and sometimes the bank is not convinced, but still sees the benefit in doing it nonetheless. But when you talk to the industry, to the sector, sometimes it's difficult because I understand that that's the point in which you are a banking union at least on the supervisory side, but you don't have the government side also in the room to some extent. And that can be an element of, and the type of environment at the national level means that people feel more obliged to follow what the supervisor says because it's a community. Here banks bring us to the European Court of Justice without a blink of an eye. In national situations, this doesn't happen very frequently. The bank feels a bit reluctant not to challenge in court the supervisor and that's the difference and we have to learn to live with that. I mean, that's the environment. So what's your track record before the European Court of Justice? Well, Frank maybe would be a better place to reply. We lost several, several judgments. And I think that, and Frank says this and I'm totally 100% with him, bring them on. I mean, eventually if the banks are right, if the court says that they are right, okay, we'll learn and we'll adapt the way in which we behave. But I don't think that we should shy away from taking difficult decisions because we are afraid of losing in court. So seeing you in court is fine? Seeing you in court is fine. Okay. So, okay, well, it's true to character, that's good. So what tools do you wish you really had had and you don't have in the toolbox? To be honest with you, it's not that... And everybody else, huh? I mean, it's not that we have tools. I don't think we are lacking tools. I think the tools that we have in our finding regulations are the right tools. The key problem I think, and this is what is making me a bit upset, honestly, on the discussion for instance for now on crisis management, is that sometimes we have the tools but because of the concerns at the political level from the legislators when the regulations are made, we try to put all the possible constraints to the authorities to not enable them to use their tools with sufficient amount of discretion. So for instance, when we take deposit guarantees, I'm not talking about this, not talking about this, we have done enough of that. But let's say with the current amount of funds that we have in the European Union is in the same ballpark of what the FDIC has in the US. Same ball. But it is scattered all over. It's scattered all over, but single-regional funds plus national deposit guarantee schemes, same amount of funds. The problem is that because of different willingness to preserve national specificities in the way which you use these deposit guarantee schemes or fear of activating too much a single-resolution fund which is the only mutualized part of our safety net, we put so many constraints that whenever we have a crisis coming, we cannot touch basically a single euro of this funding and we have also, so this means that we have very short time frames to try to find a solution to this crisis. And honestly, that's something which is difficult and we have an excellent collaboration with the SRB. We prepare together, we work together and so far we have delivered. But again, I mean, sometimes these concerns that everybody wants to preserve the national bells and whistles makes our life more difficult. We have to activate 21 different legal system when a bank goes into a crisis. And honestly, I mean, we had the crisis of Berba, playing vanilla, a bank that went bust just because it was Russian after the invasion of Ukraine. But still, we had to find a way in Slovenia where the bank was the fourth bank in the country, a way in Croatia, different way. The bank was the third bank in the country, different in Austria. I mean, it's not making our life easy. So having a little bit more, these tools that we have, making them more available, easier to use and trust the authorities. We set up these European authorities, the SRB, the ECB, trust the authorities instead of tying our ends in the legislation. Okay, so that's one of your wishes for the future. Yes. That that can be fixed and addressed. What would you like your legacy to be? You know, I think that there are several things that I'm attached to, but the most important one in my view is breaking the silo culture inside the ECB and between the ECB and the national authorities. And I think we have a fantastic firepower in terms of technical skills, in terms of people who really knows the job, is passionate. So enabling the pooling of these resources in our, in our, in the SSM, across the whole collective house we have and in give us much more effectiveness, much more impact, you know? So we have started doing that. We are not yet finished with the job. Internally, we did the organization. We have an integration agenda with the national authorities, but still a long way to go and we can be even better. But I think I'm proud I initiated this process. But I can say that's outside the interview because I'm not asking you to opine on that. It is that the cooperation between the SSM part of the house and the central banking part of the house, not just through shared services, but in general, in terms of substance, intellect, sharing of data has been fantastic. And I would like to thank you for that. You have to let me speak a bit about that because you are deviating from the script that I thought you were following, so. I don't, for you all to know, he doesn't have my script because I just made it up. No, so basically, the first point I wanted to make, actually, was stressing the point you made yesterday, which for me is very important, because, let's say again, sometimes I'm old, so I've always been a strong believer in having supervision within the central bank. And actually, I've seen in these years the value of having that. I mean, and again, if you had asked me, as I was expecting you to ask me, that how we managed these series of shocks, I think that what was fantastic was exactly to tear down these firewalls between the two sides of the central bank to mobilize the extraordinary intelligence that we had in understanding the economic environment that was changing, getting the statistics we needed on the sectors hit by COVID or by the invasion of Ukraine, pulling together people, junior people also across the house and making them work together and preparing, you know, spot on analysis, real time people working the nights, you remember that, also during the spring. That has been fantastic. And I think that honestly, and this goes to your merit, Christine, I mean, could never happen if they didn't see this type of, you know, contact relationship between the two of us and if it was not for your leadership that I owe a lot to. Yeah, too much, too kind. No, no. So, looking back at all these years and not just the last five, but looking back, if you were to advise young graduates in, you know, let's say sciences, anthropology or economics, what advice would you give? I do that quite a lot when I go, I have meetings, you know, with young graduates in finance or with the student university when I go in my country visits sometimes. And I mean, the simple thing I tell them is, well, consider becoming a supervisor because all these skills that you mentioned can be deployed very effectively in supervision, including anthropologists. And you know, it's a job. I mean, I tell the people always, no, I mean, if you look at the payoff of being a supervisor, it's terrible, you know, because if you do your work very well, nobody notices. And if you do a single tiny mistake, you are slaughtered in the streets. So, people should really run away from a job like that, right? But instead, all the people that start entering this profession eventually become so passionate about it. I mean, they, and that's fantastic. And you can deploy all these tools and come to know real life challenges that you can see in few other professions. So, I really try to, you know, use these arguments to get a little bit more incoming stuff in our collective, you know, organization. You know, there was a few Netflix series series that were instrumental to encourage young people to move in certain professions, you know. Formula One is an example, but there were a few others. Do you think we should encourage Netflix to look at supervision? I mean, why not? I mean, usually, you know... Would you accept to star? No, no, that's not something I would do well, honestly, I know my limits. That's true to character as well. No, you don't. So, the time remaining for us, my dear friend, is an hour and 15 minutes. You okay with that? No. So, I think we have to come to a close because lunch is next. I know you're not going to take up yoga, but what thing will you do wherever you go next, which you haven't had a chance to do so far? And I'm not asking you whether you have any regret. That was on my little list of questions that I put for myself this morning because you clearly have no regret. You know, I mean, in the Guardian, there is this column, you know, that is now starting life after 60. You have all these very inspiring stories of people that, you know, after 60 has changed totally their life and do something totally different. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint. I'm a boring person. And I will, I mean, my main ambition is to continue doing the same boring work from a different place, maybe, but... Ha, ha, ha, ha. Shall we applaud this boring person that we like so much? By the way, I need to say it. I mean, again, I thank already a lot of people, but I think I miss the two most important people that supported me in these five years four years for you, Christine, and three years for you, Frank. I mean, I think that, you know, again, as we say several times, this is not an easy job, no, I mean. And you have a lot of people working with you, but eventually, you know, when you have to take the difficult decision, everybody say, okay, this is in your desk, no? So you are, you feel lonely many times. And having the comfort of coming at any moment to ask for your advice, and having Frank with his support and friendship throughout these years, I mean, I wouldn't have done it without you. So thank you very much to both of you. Thank you. Thank you. This brings us to the end of this special episode, where we go to hear President Christine Lagarde interview outgoing chair Andrea Ria. You've been listening to the ECB podcast with Stefania Secola. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. And in the spirit of Europe, I'd like to end in Lithuania today and say, ikki pesimātimo. Until next time, thanks for listening.