, he or she can do so around the clock. across the industry, this opens up a wealth of potential to cut material costs. in both cases, this raises the question of whether services and the infrastructure that these require need to be provided and operated in - house, or whether these should be hived off to external providers. even though outsourcing can deliver considerable cost advantages, it ’ s a decision that should always be carefully considered. this is because responsibility for all processes always remains with the outsourcing institution. what about the income side, meanwhile? here, too, digitalisation opens up new possibilities. virtualisation, which i have already touched upon, provides more than just cost benefits. it also allows banking services to be adapted to suit the changed expectations of customers. customers nowadays are accustomed to banking whenever and wherever they want and expect their bank to be highly flexible. and german institutions have already responded to this. with banking apps on their smartphones, the younger generation, especially, are effectively carrying a bank branch around with them in their pockets. in other areas, too, such as wholesale banking, digitalisation has already opened up new possibilities. and it ’ s safe to say that a lot more will change in the foreseeable future. nor, when it comes to developing new services, should banks shy away per se from cooperating with external service providers. enterprises specialised in it - based financial services, known as fintechs, are no longer seen by established institutions solely as rivals, which was their original concern. on the contrary, i think there is still considerable potential for reaping efficiency gains here. it is now a question of bringing together digital know - how and innovative power, on the one hand, and established brands and mature customer bases, on the other. but let ’ s not forget the risks presented by digitalisation. what happens, say, when it systems are down for a time? if this disrupts automated processes, the losses can be substantial ; for example, if payment systems come to a standstill because individual payments cannot be executed. but also because news of such incidents now travels around the world in a matter of minutes, leading to a considerable reputational risk. the same is true in the case of cybercrime, where criminals target vulnerabilities in it infrastructure for personal gain or to inflict damage. as you can see, in the area of digitalisation, too, adequate risk provisioning is absolutely essential. 4 /

debt - to - income ratios were dropped from the proposal. thanks to the close collaboration and close coordination of communication among fsc members we were able to convince lawmakers to include at least two of the recommended instruments. in this sense, the fsc acts as an important hub to exchange views and coordinate action under the heading of financial stability. this is something which would have been much harder to achieve without a sound legal mandate and a designated committee. however, the arguments for the two remaining instruments are still valid and there still remain data gaps to be closed. governing macroprudential policy decisions in europe goes beyond coordination at the national level. domestic policy decisions play an important role also for the european financial system. the european systemic risk board ( esrb ) and ecb with its financial stability committee provide a cross - country view. the esrb is the macroprudential oversight body for the eu. it can issue confidential or public warnings when it identifies significant systemic risks. furthermore, the esrb can issue recommendations for remedial action to address identified risks. the ecb has the right to top - up certain national measures, such as the ccyb, thereby limiting spill - over effects that might not be fully accounted for by national authorities. this provides a laboratory for research on the effects of macroprudential policy coordination : how do national policymakers react to domestic and european financial stability risks? which indicators should guide policymaking, and which surveillance tools should be used? what is the role of communication? how to explain complex issues like financial stability, systemic risks and macroprudential instruments, such as the ccyb? what can we learn from each other? the examples given here show that macroprudential policymaking in europe is embedded in a complex set of institutional arrangements, ensuring coordination between national institutions and countries. it may be too early to tell whether these institutional arrangements help to overcome the inaction bias inherent in macroprudential policy and whether they improve the surveillance of systemic risks. but as more evidence accumulates, we will certainly learn from our experiences and improve existing frameworks, if necessary. 2 coordinating reform evaluation internationally a second example is the coordination of the fsb ’ s currently ongoing ex post policy evaluations. post - crisis financial sector reforms were agreed at a global level in order to make sure that 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches certain minimum standards apply in all jurisdictions. at the same time, many macroprudential policies that were implemented