. this room for discretion was used to take domestic considerations into account. this extra room for manoeuvring, however, was only available to the bank as long as its commitment to defend the gold standard was not called into question. was this a preview of today ’ s modern inflation targeting regime? as long as inflation expectations are well anchored, more weight can be given to developments in the real economy. the independence of norges bank was de facto substantially reduced after wwii. the legitimacy of the bank and confidence in the bank had been seriously undermined during the interwar period and during wwii. the government tried on several occasions in the first decade after wwii to turn norges bank into a subordinated agency. if the history of norges bank was written in a vacuum with no international references, one might have thought that this was unique for norway. not so, similar developments were observed in many countries who previously subscribed to the gold standard. political control over central banks was tightened in many countries with one notable exception, the bundesbank in west germany which was established as the most independent central bank in the post - wwii period ( sejersted, 1994 ). 3 norges bank was in fact not as dependent as believed. the truth may lie somewhere in between. recent research on the role of norges bank during the first decade after wwii ( ecklund, 2008 ) 4 suggests that norges bank maintained a relatively high degree of operational independence in this period. norges bank ’ s independence was gradually restored. in 1986 norges bank was granted instrument autonomy and started to set short - term interest rates to sustain the prevailing fixed exchange rate regime. the current inflation targeting regime was introduced in march 2001 and norges bank now sets short - term interest rates aimed at keeping inflation around 2. 5 % over time. greater independence demands adequate accountability. along with greater degree of autonomy and independence norges bank has become more open and transparent in its monetary policy communication. increased openness by norges bank is not only a way of achieving accountability to its constituents, but is also instrumental to enhance policy effectiveness. this stands in stark contrast with the mystique and opaqueness which characterized earlier central bank communication. for a long time central banks have focused predominantly on their interest rate policy. considerably less attention has been devoted to their liquidity policy which used to be carried out somewhere in the basement of the monetary policy temple, far away from the spotlight of the announcement of interest rate decisions. this

data processing and control capabilities is instead key, not only to responding promptly to information requests from the supervisory authorities, but especially to providing timely reports for corporate executives to make informed decisions. digitalization fosters cooperation between financial intermediaries and technology service providers. this can result in efficiency gains for the financial industry and higherquality services for users, but authorities and operators alike need to improve their ability to assess the risks associated with this process. we are about to launch new supervisory reporting on outsourcing, which will allow us to gather information on supervised entities'contracting arrangements as well as valuable input for assessing the degree of concentration among the leading service providers and ultimately to minimize the impact of any incidents. on - site inspections of the main it service providers used by the less significant banks have shown that there is more dialogue between the parties, which is essential both to monitor risks better and to design digitalization strategies. however, dialogue can only be truly effective once corporate executives have honed their it skills : as of now, just half of the less significant banks reported having at least one director with specific expertise, and the share of control function employees with these skills remains low. these initiatives come ahead of the european digital operational resilience act ( dora ), to be enforced as of 2025 to ensure that european supervisors adopt a shared approach to digital resilience across the entire financial services industry. they allow the bank of italy both to bring its experience to the authorities that are drafting secondary legislation and to better prepare banks for the 2025 deadline. we are working closely with the ministry of economy and finance ( mef ) and with consob on the implementation of the european markets in crypto - assets regulation ( micar ) in italy. the regulation also classifies these financial instruments based on their different economic functions, introduces a harmonized legal framework for them, and therefore indicates how the roles and responsibilities should be distributed among the distinct supervisory authorities. however, we are aware that it will not solve all the problems stemming from the evolution of the markets, as unhosted wallets ( i. e. digital wallets used to exchange 6 / 11 bis - central bankers'speeches crypto - assets without the involvement of an intermediary ) and the development and application of smart contracts ( i. e. computer programmes at the core of decentralized finance ) remain outside its scope. this is also why, one year after the publication of our communication on decentralized technology in finance and