exposures to each other, which means that problems at one institution can spread like wildfire throughout the financial system and even between countries. with hindsight, it is easy to see that we lacked institutions and regulatory frameworks with the ability to predict and manage a global financial crisis. this lesson has led to the emergence of an entirely new policy area – macroprudential policy. focus on the financial system as a whole – and its link to the macroeconomy macroprudential policy can be seen as a complement to both traditional supervision and monetary policy when it comes to promoting financial stability ( see slide 6 ). the focus changes from supervising individual institutions to analysing systemic risks in the financial sector and the links between the different players in the financial system. macroprudential policy also aims to analyse the links, between the financial system and the macroeconomy over time. a prerequisite for macroprudential policy becoming an efficient and effective policy area is that there is a clearly defined objective for the work. we must be clear about what we want to achieve and why. otherwise there is a risk that we will see macroprudential policy as the new panacea for future crises rather than as a well - needed complement to monetary policy and micro supervision. see european commission ( 2012 ) : alert mechanism report, published on 14 february. see, for example, imf ( 2012 ) : world economic outlook, april, where it is pointed out that recessions that are preceded by a rapid increase in indebtedness tend to be both longer and more severe than other recessions. bis central bankers ’ speeches the importance of wider safety margins one way of reducing systemic risks is to increase the safety margins in the financial sector. however, the international capital flows and the interlinked financial system mean that we must reach international consensus on how this should be done. i would also like to underline the importance of having a transparent process so that investors and the market understand the thinking of the national authorities. a large part of the work to establish a safer and more robust banking sector is conducted within the framework of the basel iii regulations. an issue of the highest priority for the basel committee has been to ensure that the financial markets never again suffer such a severe case of liquidity fever as the one we saw in the initial phases of the financial crisis. the committee has therefore required the banks to hold sufficient liquidity to cope with a highly - strained market situation for

. there are specialised providers of this sort – hellopaisa is one such example in south africa. to me this shows that, just like in the payment system as a whole, cash and non - cash options may well co - exist in the area of remittances, too. 4 conclusion ladies and gentlemen, the bundesbank regularly organises the international cash conference with researchers from all over the world. this year, too, we saw an active research agenda in the field of cash. this is something that i find important. academic research has to look deeper, trying to understand the different functions of payment methods. there are benefits and limitations to every single one of them. that is why we gave this year ’ s conference the title “ cash in the age of payment diversity ”. diversity means accepting one another ’ s individual characteristics. accepting diversity lays the groundwork for co - existence. this was our way of saying : forward together. thank you. 1 deutsche bundesbank ( 2018 ), payment behaviour in germany in 2017 – fourth study of the utilisation of cash and cashless payment instruments 2 feige, e. ( 2012 ), the myth of the “ cashless society ” : how much of america ’ s currency is overseas? in : deutsche bundesbank international cash conference 2012., pp. 119 – 151. 3 barajas, a., chami, r., ebeke c. and oeking, a. ( 2016 ), what ’ s different about monetary policy transmission in remittance - dependent countries? imf working paper 16 / 44. 3 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches