direction the enemy – often the same enemy – would advance. the reality of it is a different matter altogether : enemies are unknown and almost never come out into 4 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches the open. in some cases, professional hackers hide for months on end within a company ’ s fortress walls. and even if the company has detected a system breach, this does not mean for a minute that the assailant has been driven out of the system – this requires, in some cases, topof - the - line criminology techniques. it security must therefore be more akin to an immune system than to a fortress. and you can very well imagine that a good antivirus scanner and a firewall are far from enough to protect this immune system sufficiently. for a bank ’ s immune system to be healthy, it has to have suitable corporate structures. put simply : governance has to be good. our supervisors therefore order some institutions to tear down the responsibility “ firewall ", where no one is willing to assume responsibility for the many interlinked aspects of cyber risk. in addition, the “ human ” factor has to be taken into account as a weak link in it and cyber risk. therefore, this it security aspect has to be directly factored into any new projects on to which an institution embarks. by the way, the same goes for financial services start - ups. despite their reputation for having more state - of - the - art it knowledge, in the absence of comprehensive security management, they can easily fall prey to dangers from the internet. i still owe you a third point : innovation often has to be a matter for each individual institution. in the patchwork quilt of banks here in germany, there is no “ one - size - fits - all ” solution : each and every institution, be it large or small, rural or urban, special - purpose financing vehicle or universal bank, has to find and go its own way. 5. conclusion ladies and gentlemen, to briefly sum up the content of my remarks : can banks sit out the current situation using a strategy that was successful in the past? i am convinced that the answer is : no. what type of innovation is being called for here? in my view, digitalisation will reward not those who “ reinvent the wheel ” but those who are generally more competent at what they do. can banks be innovative? yes ; at the very least, there are enough starting points and actionable areas. for it will

, italy and the united kingdom 14 %. during the 1980s and 1990s, many central banks were granted independence. the european central bank, which was established during that era, has been independent from the outset. 3 / 8 bis central bankers'speeches 3 the euro at 20 ladies and gentlemen, on 1 january, the single european currency – the euro – turned 20. against the yardstick of the ecb governing council ’ s definition of price stability of “ below but close to 2 % ”, the euro has been a success. the average euro area inflation rate over the first 20 years was 1. 7 % per year. the promise of stability was kept. compared with the average loss of purchasing power of its legacy currencies like the deutsche mark or the french franc, the euro is even more of a stable currency. key to this success, in my view, has been the monetary framework of our currency union. it rests on two cornerstones – the mandate and the independence of the eurosystem, which is made up of the european central bank and the national central banks of those eu countries that adopted the euro as their currency. both the mandate and independence are stipulated in the eu treaties. this protects the two cornerstones from legal changes, because any changes to the treaties would require unanimity among all eu member states. the primary objective of the eurosystem is to maintain price stability. without prejudice to this goal, the eurosystem shall support the general economic policies in europe. so there is a clear hierarchy of objectives. the independence of the ecb and national central banks is also enshrined in the treaties which, in addition, prohibit the monetary financing of governments. this strong monetary framework has been the sound foundation of monetary stability. nevertheless, the euro area experienced a significant economic and fiscal crisis over the past decade. figuratively speaking, you could say that the euro had an easy childhood but difficult teenage years. or, as martin wolf recently wrote in his ft column : “ like many people of 20, the european currency has experienced a traumatic adolescence. ” 10 the underlying causes of the sovereign debt crisis were considerable macroeconomic imbalances in euro area member states : too much borrowing, too much unproductive spending, the loss of price competitiveness, a lack of structural reform. however, the crisis was also borne out of institutional weaknesses. you could say that the monetary union has a strong leg and a weak leg. the strong leg from the outset has