become front and center. at times, the payments process is so seamlessly integrated that one can forget that there is even a bank in the process, as with the uber and lyft example. but despite this shift in focus, payments innovation is still fundamentally about how, when, and where an individual ’ s deposits can be held, transferred, and packaged with other information. and banks are still important players in making that happen. even where this reality is obscured by several layers of technology, there is almost always a bank involved in consumer transactions. given their importance in holding and transferring funds, banks continue to have a key role to play in the design and safety of more efficient retail payment systems. without bank participation, it would be difficult to change how funds are transferred in a way that brings pervasive benefits to consumers. for example, if the aim is to capture the speed and continuous nature of today ’ s commerce in the payment system as a whole — as has become a focus for many countries, including the united states — it would be difficult to do so without banks allowing the transfer of their deposits on a 24x7 real - time basis. of course, individual payment systems are already doing this for consumers within their own network. but achieving these benefits on a broad scale would be challenging without the banking system ’ s participation, because of the large role banks have in holding and transferring funds. all this is to say that we are at a critical juncture in the payment system ’ s evolution, where technology is rapidly changing many facets of the payments process. fintech firms and banks are seizing these technological changes in their own ways. but a collective and collaborative effort by all payment stakeholders will also be important as the united states works to achieve a payment system that has broad reach and can seamlessly integrate with other systems to transfer funds in a reliable, secure, and convenient manner. when we pay with cash or write a check, we don ’ t spend a lot of time worrying about who our recipient banks with ; that universality seems an appropriate standard for new payment options as well. strategies for improving the u. s. payment system at the federal reserve, we believe it is important to embrace opportunities provided by technological change to improve the convenience and safety of the u. s. payment system. about five years ago, we launched our payment system improvement initiative, which committed the federal reserve to working with the full range of payments system stakeholders to achieve a faster, more secure payment system.

has been boosted just as much as lending to companies. so we have seen an overall rise in the propensity to invest. the negotiated wage agreements also show that our measures are having an impact. wage growth in the euro area stands at more than 2 %, and it is even slightly higher in germany. that will push up prices. but it is slower than we had thought. why? the level of economic growth is one factor, but another is the labour market. as far as economic growth is concerned, there have been repeated setbacks over the past few years. geopolitical uncertainties such as brexit and the threat of protectionism are currently weighing on economic sentiment. that is also why inflation remains subdued. moreover, it has taken a long time for the decline in unemployment to be reflected in higher wages. the number of people who lost their jobs in the crisis but never registered themselves as unemployed has been underestimated. when the economy revived, these people returned to the labour market. a great many people, above all part - time workers, began to work longer hours when the upswing set in. in brief, the labour supply was underestimated. it ’ s only when the labour market has thoroughly cleared that 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches wages start to climb more steeply. we ’ re seeing that in germany for example. one serious criticism of the ecb ’ s programme is that it is effectively only subsidising the southern crisis countries. the central bank has pushed interest rates down. without this life - saver, italy would have gone bankrupt long ago and the euro would have been history. hold on a moment. all have benefited from the measures. the savings for taxpayers resulting from lower interest rates were nowhere as high as in germany. but isn ’ t it also true that the ecb is indirectly financing governments here? any creditor who invests in italian or spanish government bonds knows that the ecb will buy these bonds off them in the future. even though i am not the strongest advocate of our government bond purchases, we do not finance individual governments with them, directly or indirectly. our aim is to maintain price stability. thanks to our bond purchases, interest rates go down and loans become cheaper, primarily benefiting households and businesses. besides, we have a very clear set of criteria for the timing, selection and volumes of our government bond purchases. our parameters ensure that the private market for government bonds remains intact. one sign of