The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority is alive to the use of macroprudential policy tools, its general manager, David Lewis, told a banking conference in Canada.In a speech devoted to APRA's preference for "risk-based supervision", Lewis touched on the "growing interest in macroprudential supervision as a risk identification tool.""As you know, enhancing regulators' capacity for macroprudential oversight has become a major focus of reform initiatives coming out of the global financial crisis. This is to be welcomed.""It is apparent that too little attention has been paid to system-wide imbalances in the past, and this needs to be addressed. It is an area in which APRA is looking to make improvements as well."Lewis cautioned that "it is also apparent that macroprudential supervision means different things to different people. To some, macroprudential supervision means adding another layer to a prudential framework to install system-wide 'shock-absorbers' to dampen excessive swings in the economic cycle. "If this is what is intended, then we still have some way to go. "But, to others, macroprudential supervision is nothing new. It is what prudential supervisors have always done - or should have done."It should not be overlooked that, when done well, the timely interventions of supervisors to counteract excessive risk-taking by firms is inherently counter-cyclical.""[We are] currently developing a range systemic risk indicators across each of the industry sectors that we supervise to help us to map and track potential industry risks," said Lewis."In each case, we examine a number of potential risk indicators and then look at their impact on individual firms. This highlights those firms which might be vulnerable to the particular risk and focuses attention on the outliers. Having done that, we also take into account indicators of how that risk is tending.Meanwhile, Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens used a speech in Brisbane yesterday to reflect on one recent instance of excessive risk-taking by Australian banks."It could be said that we were fortunate that the sub-prime crisis in the US emerged... [in] early 2007, and not later," he said. "Although such lending was less prominent in Australia at that time, it was growing fast and [this] would have become a much bigger vulnerability had it continued at that pace. "The fact that things went wrong in the US when they did meant that what was a small problem here stayed small. "It could be added that we were lucky that the change in behaviour of households - slower borrowing, more saving - came when it did. "For a start, had households continued as they were, they would have become more financially extended, and it is obvious now that that would have been risky."