Page 258 - 2019 6th AFIS & ASMMA

Good morning to all of you. It's a big honor for us to be here in on Thursday afternoon in Europe, the upcoming new chairwoman, or
Busan and to share with all of you, all the distinguished guests of today,
our views on what's going on in the mortgage market in Europe, and
the challenges we have at the global level. I think it's very important to
highlight how important the summit is today and how the title of the
summit is really capturing the challenge that we all face.
Our political landscape is becoming very uncertain. Our consumers
are changing their behavior, and as a consequence our strategies in terms
of funding, in terms of valuation, in terms of Fintech, have to change
consequently. That's a big change for our industry, but we have no other
alternative. We have to change, because the world around us is changing,
and because the mortgage business is one of the fundamental pillars
of every single country. It's true that at global level, we have different
houses, we have a different social system, but the mortgage business is
always having the same mission; make a family grow and be able to have
a social lift, which means improving and having hope for the future.
And now more than ever, having hope in the future is important from
a social point of view, and also from a political point of view. So, the
challenges are very local, but the solution from my point of view is very
global. It's very important that we have this kind of global collaboration,
and we'd like to express the gratitude as the European Covered Bond
Council for the high contribution provided by Korean Housing Finance
Corporation in our institution. Your contribution is very helpful for us to
realign completely the funding strategies at a global level.
Today I would like to speak with you about our flagship initiative,
which is trying to capture the energy efficiency debate in the mortgage
business. We believe that the challenge of climate change is one of
the major challenges for our market. I would like to share with you
my views on why I think this will change our business, starting from
tomorrow morning. Well first of all, there are a few news that I would
like to share with you that can help us understand how the world around
us is changing, and this will have deep implications on our business
models. Just to share with you the news that I read in the last few days,
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governor, of the European Central Bank made a strong bold statement
saying that, for the first time, in case of a new quantitative easing, Europe Speech Keynote
has to take in consideration a new taxonomy capturing ESG parameters.
So, for the first time, the European Central Bank is trying to
implement a green taxonomy in their financial market operation, which
will help investors have a green approach towards financial markets. This
is a big change. And it's coming from a strong statement of the European
Commission in taking the leadership in the energy efficiency debate in
Europe, but also from the global level. In Europe, in the last two years,
a group of experts, which is called the Technical Expert Group, has
provided a clear taxonomy for the financial markets, trying to capture
climate change in our financial landscape.
This is already having a strong implication on the investor appetite.
I had meetings with asset managers in Amsterdam a few days ago, and
it's very clear that the ESG parameters are becoming a strong parameter
in their financial decision. So, they are not allowed anymore to invest
in anything considered as a source of pollution or a source of political
problems. So, it's very important for our banks that we realign completely
our strategy, and create a clear link between asset-side strategies and
funding strategies. Covered bonds from our point of view can play an
important role in providing transparency and clear information to the
investors.
So, we can build our story around three big pillars: consumer
behavior, lending behavior, and investor behavior. And how our
business, our mortgage business, can help in our case, in our country,
and in Europe, to build a strong political agenda around our financial
needs. Well, speaking about Europe; in Europe we have a very strange
situation as you know, where we are a kind of country, but we are a kind
of a Federation or Confederation, as you prefer. It depends where you're
based. And the economic area of the European Union is collecting all
together 500 million of people. This 500 million of people, they own 247
million of houses. The houses in Europe are actually contributing to the
2019 6th AFIS & ASMMA Annual Meeting 261