recovery after the war. he gave political life to the unconventional yet ultimately successful “ social market economy ”. following a political battle against interventionists and central planners at the time, erhard ’ s ideas were finally approved in august 1949, when his party secured an electoral victory. he fulfilled the mandate bestowed on him by revitalizing a ravaged germany. the social market economy has become much more than a central tenet of german economic policy. european leaders have committed themselves to it and enshrined it in the lisbon treaty. 1 for us at the ecb this ordoliberal foundation is most clearly expressed in our steadfast commitment to price stability. erhard did not shy away from taking bold decisions to art. 3. 3 of the lisbon treaty “ the union shall [ … ] work for the sustainable development of europe based on [ … ] a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress [ … ] ”. bis central bankers ’ speeches fulfil his political mandate, and we do not shy away from taking bold decisions to fulfil our price stability mandate. why did we act in june? prior to our june decision, the euro area inflation rate had fallen by two - thirds in less than a year. in may and june it reached just about 0. 5 % – far from our medium - term definition of price stability of below, but close to, 2 %. even in germany inflation has declined markedly. it has hovered around 1 % in recent months. as germany plays a benchmark role for peripheral countries in correcting their imbalances, this fall in the country ’ s rate of inflation was adding to risks of a race to the bottom for the euro area economy as a whole, with potentially disruptive economic consequences. we had to act, otherwise we would not have lived up to our mandate. why did we adopt specifically this set of measures? our policy deliberations started off from three contingencies that could generate further downside shocks to inflation, and keep it low for a longer period than consistent with our medium - term horizon. the first contingency was an unwarranted tightening of the effective monetary policy stance originating from an erosion in money market liquidity or adverse spillovers from global financial conditions. accordingly, we reduced the key ecb interest rates and reaffirmed our forward guidance, indicating that interest rates would stay at present levels for an extended period of time in the euro area, while being aware that

benjamin e diokno : supervision in challenging times speech by mr benjamin e diokno, governor of bangko sentral ng pilipinas ( bsp, the central bank of the philippines ), at the sap financial services live, 16 november 2020. * * * thank you, peter for the introduction. good day to everyone. it is with great pride that i welcome you all to the central bank stream of sap financial services live 2020. i understand that while this global flagship event has been regularly held for more than a decade, this is the first time that it is having a central bank stream. with this, i am very pleased. financial supervision has always been a challenging undertaking. while it is continuously made more exciting by the rapid pace of digital transformation all over the world, it is also made much more complicated by the covid - 19 pandemic. that said, digital transformation has affected the philippine financial system and is profoundly changing bank supervision. just like in other countries in asia and around the world, the digital transformation of the philippine financial system has started long before this pandemic. as we speak, asia ’ s high - income economies, for example, continue to leverage long - standing strengths in information and communications technology policy vision and implementation in accelerating fiber deployment, cementing plans for 5g rollout and advancing ai development. based on the 2018 asian digital transformation index, asian countries continue building supportive environments for technology - led change, such as the availability of open data and investment in infrastructure. the covid - 19 pandemic, however, has served as an unexpected catalyst for digital transformation ’ s rapid acceleration by encouraging the use of digital financial services such as cashless payments and electronic fund transfers. when the bangko sentral ng pilipinas ( bsp ) conducted a baseline survey of the impact of covid - 19 pandemic on philippine banks, we found out that while the big banks are generally on pace with their digitization initiatives, smaller banks are yet to catch up. the discrepancy is because of the lack of right technology, insufficient in - house skills, lack of budget, and over - reliance on legacy technology. however, despite these challenges, the pandemic has forced all financial institutions in the philippines to fast track their digitization initiatives to cope with movement restrictions and social distancing measures. banks which fail to keep up with this digital transformation face the risk of losing a significant part of their client base and market share.