speech governor lars rohde, suerf conference, new york 16 october 2019 check against delivery dear ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the invitation to share my view on technological change and digitalisation in a danish and international framework. slide 2 : the nordics are digital frontrunners denmark is a highly digitalised country. together with the other nordic countries and the netherlands, denmark is a digital frontrunner with top rankings on digital performance. and digitalisation is indeed widespread throughout danish society. danes are heavy users of digital solutions and both the public sector and the private sector provide a vast amount of digital services such as online banking and e - commerce. these services are not only used by the younger generations, but also by the elderly : four out of five danes in the age group of 75 to 89 used online banking last year. slide 3 : the public sector provides a vast amount of digital services how did denmark become this digital frontrunner? the answer is that this position has developed over decades and that the danish government has taken an active role in supporting the digital transformation of the society. the decision to create a civil registration system back in 1968 was a key element in this transformation. the national register contains basic personal information on all citizens who have a civil registration number. a similar system for companies was implemented in 1985. these registries allow for unique identification of all citizens and companies and they constitute the basis for all public and many private digital services. since 2001 denmark has had multi - year public strategies for digitalisation. today, most public services are available on an online portal for public services – borger. dk – ( " citizen. dk " ), and the tax authority's homepage – skat. dk – ( " tax. dk " ). to facilitate digital interactions with public authorities each dane has a personal e - id to access services securely – nemid – ( " easy - id " ), a mandatory bank account for transfers from authorities – page 1 of 5 nemkonto – ( " easy account " ), and a digital mailbox for letters and messages from the public sector – e - boks – ( " e - box " ). when the infrastructure was in place, many online self - services were made mandatory, and in 2014 it became mandatory for individuals and businesses to use digital post when communicating with public authorities. in fact, 80 per cent of all letters from the government, banks, pension firms, etc. are digital and

towards automation and digitalisation, more than half believe that it will create new jobs or keep jobs in denmark. one of the reasons for this could be a combination of a flexible labour market and the danish welfare system, also known as the " flexicurity " labour market model. this model is characterised by a high degree of flexibility in the employer's right to hire and fire employees and an extensive social safety net in case of unemployment. this is especially the case for low - wage earners with high exposure to unemployment risks. on top of this comes a broad consensus between danish trade unions and employer organisations. the model strikes a balance between flexibility and security, and that is an advantage when coping with technological change. i believe this is key to understanding the positive danish attitude toward globalisation. page 3 of 5 slide 7 : one consequence of digital transformation – a case study but to reap the full benefits of digital transformation you also have to adjust or downscale less digital infrastructure. an example is the downscaling of the danish post service company, postnord. decreased dependency on physical letters has had a negative impact on postnord. since 2000, the amount of letters sent has fallen by about 80 per cent. and the lower turnover of physical letters means that less staff is needed. several rounds of large - scale redundancies have therefore been conducted in order to scale down postnord to the new business dimensions. the danish government has supported these mass layoffs by providing the funds needed to reduce the number of staff. this included dismissing a large group of civil servants. as illustrated by the postnord case, the technological development has a large impact on the way we work : in order to be able to gain the full benefits of digital transformation, you must be willing to adjust. in our experience, these consequences can be somewhat mitigated by a flexible labour market. slide 8 : a highly digital society demands focus on cyber resilience increased dependency on digital systems means that we are more vulnerable towards cyber threats. today, it is no longer a question whether there are cyber criminals who have the capacity to penetrate our systems. we know that for a fact. hence, a highly digital society demands focus on cyber resilience. it is essential that we take measures to best protect us from cyberattacks, detect them when they occur, respond to them appropriately and recover from them as fast as possible. otherwise the very foundation of our digital financial society could be compromised.