During a period of strong global growth, growing capital flows and prolonged stability earlier this
decade, market participants sought higher yields without an adequate appreciation of the risks and
failed to exercise proper due diligence. At the same time, weak underwriting standards, unsound
risk management practices, increasingly complex and opaque financial products and consequent
excessive leverage combined to create vulnerabilities in the system. Policy makers, regulators
and supervisors, in some advanced countries, did not adequately appreciate and address the risks
building up in financial markets, keep pace with financial innovation, or take into account the
systematic ramifications of domestic regulatory actions.20