responses to common crises in the future. in a survey commissioned by the european parliament, 69 % of respondents indicate that they would support additional competences for european authorities in responding to a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic. within countries, the impact of the crisis was by no means uniform either. in this context, disadvantaged individuals – including those with low incomes and education levels, younger workers and women – were far more heavily affected by the containment measures than others. however, an increase in inequality as a result of the crisis is not inevitable. fiscal policy is able to provide targeted support to specific industries and social groups who bear a particularly heavy burden due to the pandemic. such support is not only about redistribution, but also about empowerment of individuals to cope with the inevitable structural change caused by the pandemic. education and family policy are likely to play an important role in this context. within the remit of its mandate, monetary policy can have an impact on social inequality to the extent that its measures benefit lower income groups, given that these groups are most heavily affected by job losses. beyond this effect, monetary policy does not possess targeted instruments to mitigate the distributional ramifications of the crisis on an individual level. in the long run, the key objective should be to prevent permanent scarring effects due to a structural entrenchment of inequalities emerging in the context of the crisis. thank you very much for your attention. [ 1 ] this is a translated version of the original speech ( delivered in german ). i would like to thank jirka slacalek and joachim schroth for their contributions to this speech. [ 2 ] the ecb ’ s macroeconomic projection exercise published in september 2020 is available at : https : / / www. ecb. europa. eu / pub / projections / html / ecb. projections202009 _ ecbstaff ~ 0940bca288. en. html. the broad macroeconomic projection exercise published in march 2020 is available at : https : / / www. ecb. europa. eu / pub / pdf / other / ecb. projections202003 _ ecbstaff ~ dfa19e18c4. en. pdf. [ 3 ] see also eurostat, news release 88 / 2020, 3 june 2020, https : / / ec. europa. eu / eurostat / documents / 2995521 / 10294960 / 303062020 -

. it seems that regulators are not willing to take chances and wait for a ‘ minsky moment ’ to occur on the back of technological innovation. looking from the perspective of international financial stability, this is a highly welcome and reassuring development. treating fintech as an opportunity, not as a headache so : an opportunity or a headache? adapting the regulatory framework to ever - changing financial innovations is not an easy task. yet instead of treating this as a problem, we should see it as an ideal chance. this is exactly the strategy that we are pursuing at the bank of lithuania. a couple of years ago, our institution set out on a mission to turn lithuania into a regional fintech hub. the nordic - baltic region is known for its highly digitalised economies and financial systems. yet lithuania has managed to stand out as a particularly fintech - focused and open jurisdiction. of course, this does not undermine our core mission – to ensure stability and credibility of our financial system. looking into specific fintech - supporting regulatory elements, the bank of lithuania is one of the few central banks globally providing direct access to its payments infrastructure for non - bank financial firms. this means that fintechs can provide payment services across the euro area on their own, cutting out the middleman. in other words, innovative financial institutions are placed on a truly equal footing with established banks, fostering competition in the sector. while ‘ regulatory sandboxes ’ for interacting with new market entrants have become quite widespread by now, we have taken a step further. next year, we are preparing to launch a ‘ technological sandbox ’, codenamed lbchain. it will function as a service - based platform for cooperating with private actors both nationally and internationally. the platform ’ s central goal is developing and testing state - of - the - art solutions based on the emerging blockchain technology. being a fintech frontrunner regionally, lithuania also offers one of the most favourable regulatory environments in europe. take, for example, licensing. as we are highly speedoriented, an electronic money or payments institution licence will be ready in 3 months – compared with roughly 12 months in most other european countries. on top of this, we have introduced a unique ‘ specialised bank ’ licence, which allows fintech firms to transform themselves into banks, but with lower capital requirements. and it is not just a lithuanian licence that you get. it also enables fintechs to offer their services across europe, with basically no