the european commission, in romania and bulgaria almost three - quarters of inhabitants are unbanked. 10 against this background, while striving for greater efficiency in retail payments, financial inclusion is another important pillar. in my view, it is essential to make sure that every european consumer can open and use a basic payment account with a set of basic payment services. only then will people will be able to fully benefit from sepa. as such, i fully agree with the european commission, which has stated this objective in a recent eu recommendation. 11 talking of retail payments let me say a final word on banknotes. even if there are different views in society about the efficiency of cash as a means of payment, both its friends and foes agree that it will be used as a means of payment in the foreseeable future. and as it is the task of the eurosystem to protect the integrity of the euro banknotes and stay ahead of counterfeiters, the ecb has recently announced the introduction of a new series of euro banknotes, called the europa series. they will be introduced in ascending order over several years, starting with the €5 banknote in may 2013. the new €5 banknote will include enhanced security features and has been made more durable. it will be unveiled in full on 10 january 2013. the following 13 central banks have been actively participating in the study : danmarks nationalbank, eesti pank, central bank of ireland, bank of greece, banco de espana, banca d ’ italia, latvijas banka, magyar nemzeti bank, de nederlandsche bank, banco de portugal, banca nationala a romaniei, suomen pankki and sveriges riksbank. [ 9 ] schmiedel, h. ; kostova, g. : ruttenberg, w. ( 2012 ) : the social and private costs of retail payment instruments. ecb occasional paper series no 137, sept. 2012. http : / / www. ecb. int / pub / pdf / scpops / ecbocp137. pdf [ 10 ] hughes, s. j. ( 2010 ) : payments data security breaches and oil spills : what lessons can payments security learn from the laws governing remediation of the exxon valdez, deepwater horizon, and other oil spills? indiana university maurer school of law, jan. 2010. http : / /

on other issues. any self - regulatory nature of the sepa council shall be complemented by regulation and / or competition to find out the most efficient solutions to integrate the market. in any case, the notion of self - regulation versus regulation shall be seen as a dynamic phenomenon which may change over time. i admit that finding the right combination of self - regulation and regulation always represents a challenge, but the in addition to the eu27, sepa comprises iceland, liechtenstein, monaco, norway, and switzerland. sepa makes use of iso standards, such as iban and iso20022. iso20022 is the standard used for t2s and plays an important role for the future developments in target2. bis central bankers ’ speeches benefits of market - driven solutions for retail payments in europe are apparent. in addition, it is important that self - regulation is guided by the search for europe - wide solutions, thereby preventing any recourse to national and fragmented market structures. fragmentation of retail payment markets can lead to inefficient market structures and higher costs to participants and society as a whole. measuring the true underlying costs of retail payments is not trivial. some pioneering national central banks have already looked into this issue at domestic level. european cross - country comparisons are so far uncharted territory. it is only recently that the ecb has shown in a study7, 8 that the social costs of retail payment instruments, including cash and non - cash payments, are substantial. they amount to almost 1 % of gdp in europe. the study also makes clear that considerable differences exist within europe. in facilitating the debate among participants in the payment chain, the ecb study seeks to provide an important tool for further benchmarking and efficiency analysis. another important dimension is trust in the safety of retail payment instruments. in this sense, the protection of individuals ’ payments data becomes more and more sensitive and important. data breaches can have effects as devastating as environmental disasters9 and undermine overall confidence and faith in a currency and retail payment instruments. therefore, payments data have to be handled with utmost care. it should be protected from misuse, while at the same time recognising the need for open and fair competition in the payments field. let me also point out the issue of financial inclusion. it is interesting to note that in the eu not everybody has a bank account. for example, one - quarter of italians and one - third of hungarians do not have a bank account. according to