maintaining macroeconomic stability, particularly in controlling inflationary pressures, has been recently highlighted by a number of institutions within the country and abroad. however, i would highlight the public evaluation for the institution i govern as the greatest success we have achieved. this evaluation is expressed clearly in anchoring inflationary pressures in the country and in increasing the degree of using their products. naturally i regard it a direct reflection of high technical and professional investment the bank of albania has made in setting up an equilibrated framework of macroeconomic policies, in increasing financial markets, in developing the monetary market infrastructure and in consolidating the banking institutions. on the political plane, the bank of albania has kept unchanged its focus on monetary policy, to guarantee price stability in the economy. it has monitored prudentially the liquidity conditions and interest rates in the economy, as well as other factors of potential negative impact on inflation, raising twice the key interest rate in the economy. also, the bank of albania has been a productive partner in coordinating the economic policies of the country and in the performance of the agreement with the imf. on the financial market development plane, the bank of albania has undertaken a number of incentives for completing the banking infrastructure and the legal framework. reflecting largely on macroeconomic stability and on improvement of banking infrastructure, lending to the economy has undergone very rapid paces during three latest years. on the other hand, the strengthening of banking supervision measures and the prudential regulations serve as a guarantee that the banking system expansion and rapid credit growth to the economy will not create problems for the financial health of banks and for their long - term sustainability. the bank of albania is raising the degree of professionalism, which is a guarantee for strengthening the independence, transparency and accountability. therefore, the decisionmaking process has been further perfected, thus increasing the credibility of the bank of albania to the public.

response. this might prove useful for instance to address challenges coming from the introduction of cbdc by other countries. central banks are actively exploring its potential. this is notably the case of the banque de france. we have successfully carried out since 2020 seven experimentations on wholesale cbdc – and we will carry out two more by the end of this year, with private and public actors alike, covering a wide range of use cases ( dvp and pvp ), including cross - border transactions. let me point out that a cbdc should be designed in our view in a way it is distributed by intermediaries, to allow the banking sector to keep a key role in the monetary policy transmission. c. possible impacts of a cbdc on monetary policy implementation : preliminary thoughts when decided and depending of course on the specifics of the project launched in the concerned jurisdictions, a cbdc could have several consequences on monetary policy implementation. i will highlight today three dimensions to consider, among many others, in case the introduction of cbdc is decided : liquidity configuration, policy rates and access to central bank balance sheet. 1. first potential impact : the launch of cbdcs could affect monetary implementation through a change in the liquidity situation of the banking system. - while the design of the cbdc should ensure that any risk of sudden large shifts from bank deposits to cbdc would be avoided, it could still substitute a limited part of retail deposits, through an increase of what we call in central banking jargon “ autonomous factors ”, i. e. an item not linked to monetary policy but affecting the liquidity situation of the banking system. - this could in turn imply that the central bank – depending on its preferred liquidity position – provides additional liquidity through refinancing operations and / or asset purchases. in case of collateralized refinancing operations, collateral availability would also need to be checked to accommodate the operations. while it is very much a speculative thought at this stage, liquidity - providing or liquidityabsorbing operations would need to remain available at any time to ensure that central banks can choose to operate in the monetary policy implementation framework they choose, even in the case of the launch of a cbdc. 2. second : the chosen remuneration scheme, as well as possible limits, are key parameters for the usage of cbdc that also need to be assessed for the monetary policy framework. - a successful cbdc should be attractive enough to be used