( bis ) showed that nearly 90 % of all responding central banks are conducting some kind of cbdc research. of course, the south african reserve bank ( sarb ) is also looking into making its payments system future - proof. project khokha 2, for instance, aimed to explore the potential of tokenised money, blockchain and digital currencies. amongst other aspects, the sarb looked into a tokenised form of central bank money to conduct transactions between central banks. [ 2 ] however, when it comes to developing a retail cbdc, south africa prefers to be a “ very fast follower ”, as sarb governor lesetja kganyago phrased it, learning from other countries that are early adopters. in europe, the eurosystem – which comprises the european central bank ( ecb ), the bundesbank and the other national central banks in the euro area – is actively working on the possible issuance of a cbdc : a digital euro would be available for use by private end users and companies in the form of a retail cbdc. 2 why are we considering issuing a digital euro? but why are we considering issuing a digital euro? there are many possible motivations to introduce a cbdc and there is, in my view, no global “ one size fits all ” solution. it depends very much on the specific circumstances in the different countries. let me point out three motives for the euro area. first, we are considering the issue of sovereignty in payments. in europe, we are seeing new players enter the payments market with innovative business models and convenient applications for users. bigtech firms are leveraging their existing digital platforms with international customer bases to expand into new markets. but these payment solutions are typically run by companies with headquarters outside the european union. in addition, they often form a fairly closed ecosystem. this brings us to the legitimate question of whether we want to be heavily or even solely reliant on a few international players when it comes to making payments. in order to strengthen europe ’ s independence in payments, it might be worth developing our own solutions. as the ecb president, christine lagarde, [ 4 ] put it : “ ( … ) [ t ] he best insurance against a more uncertain world is building more resilience at home. ” with a digital euro, we would have a payment solution in public money for retail payments all across the euro area – under european governance. second, we have been seeing

be dealt with under the sgp. however, we should refrain from macro fine - tuning – be it at the european or at the national level. such efforts would definitely overburden economic policy and raise expectations that are bound to be disappointed. instead, reasonable macroeconomic surveillance should confine itself to the early detection of harmful domestic imbalances that have significant negative spillover effects on other member countries or even the euro area as a whole. this in principle also precludes the symmetric treatment of current account surpluses and deficits : divergences within the euro area were caused by distortions and the inefficient use of capital in deficit countries. hence, the brunt of the adjustments has to be borne by these countries, whereas – as studies demonstrate – additional stimuli by surplus economies would do little to ease this burden. at the current juncture, the fundamental characteristics of the macroeconomic surveillance procedure are still very vague. in my view, the details need to be worked out first. only once this has been done, can we decide whether it makes sense to complement the procedure with sanctions and what these sanctions might look like. 4. conclusion ladies and gentlemen, the economic and financial crisis has demonstrated that there is ample room for improvement and need for reform in our financial system as well as in the area of eu governance. a look at the global agenda shows that the main messages that the crisis has taught us seem to have been understood. as the recovery proceeds, it is of the essence not to relent in our efforts to implement the necessary measures. if the momentum for structural reforms in the various fields of economic policy can be maintained, we will have made significant progress on the path towards strong, balanced and sustainable growth. thank you for your attention.