Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, on Friday discussed whether monetary policy may have helped prevent the financial crisis.

In his speech at the Bank of Canada, Smaghi highlighted failures in financial regulation and supervision, and structural changes in the financial sector. However, he also challenged whether errant monetary policy was the immediate cause .

Bini Smaghi discussed the merits of the argument that claims interest rates were kept