The more severe and tangible impact of climate change has raised awareness of people around the world, resulting in calls for new standards and regulations aimed at containing environmental externalities from businesses. Two good examples are the ban of fuel with high sulfur content for the shipping industry, and social calls for businesses to reduce the usage of single-use plastics. Naturally, adopting these higher standards comes with higher costs and it would serve businesses well to take this into account when designing new business models. For businesses taking these regulations passively, this will only mean higher costs and lower profits. However, the sustainable movement presents an incredible opportunity for businesses that can meet this demand. Consumers are now demanding more environmentally friendly products and services. According to a survey done by Nielsen, 66 percent of global consumers are willing to pay premium for environmentally friendly products. The number is even higher for younger generations. The concept of first-mover advantage also applies here, since those who could first systematically identify new environmentally friendly practice will set standard for the entire industry. 3. Changes in value chain The third trend I will highlight is the change in the global value chain. In discussing value chains, it is almost impossible to avoid thinking about the ongoing trade tensions that are suppressing the global economic sentiment. While the trade tensions might prove to be short-lived, they have distorted value chains and engraved a long-lasting impact on global production through trade diversion and production relocation.

As the operator of NBO, Norges Bank is also working on measures that will strengthen the settlement system centrally. 5  Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) – previously the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) – and International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). 6  The financial infrastructure comprises the payment system and securities settlement system, including central counterparty systems. 7  The following systems were evaluated: Clearing and settlement systems for payments, the securities settlement system, the VPS registry function and the central counterparty Oslo Clearing, the latter two in collaboration with Finanstilsynet. The evaluation was presented in the Norges Bank Financial Infrastructure Report 2014. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Outsourcing Today’s financial infrastructure is based on advanced technical solutions. This places considerable demands on system developers and operators. This expertise is costly and may be difficult to retain. Owners have largely outsourced technical operations. This provides greater flexibility. At the same time, outsourcing can make it more challenging to manage operational risk. The fixed costs associated with operation and development can be high. This allows operators to exploit economies of scale. A possible result of outsourcing is that several systems use the same service provider. This may reduce costs. On the other hand, such a concentration may weaken competition, while risk is concentrated in a single provider. Any failure in the service provider may then impact large parts of the financial infrastructure. The systems are vulnerable to technical failure and to external attacks.