“As illustrated, quite literally, by a chart that New York Fed staff produced a few years ago, the term “shadow banking system” encompasses a wide variety of institutions that engage in credit intermediation and maturity transformation outside the insured depository system. In my remarks today, I want to concentrate on short-term wholesale funding and, especially, the pre-crisis explosion in the creation of assets that were thought to be “cash equivalents.” Such assets were held by a range of highly risk-averse investors, who were in many cases not fully cognizant that the “cash equivalents” in their portfolios were liabilities of shadow banks–the institutions depicted in the memorable graphic.”