services as possible under one roof. 1 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches banking could also be reshaped by big data, whereby banks ’ financial knowledge of their customers could feed into a comprehensive, very powerful customer profile enabling value to be created via interfaces with completely different sectors. there are still other far - reaching scenarios under discussion, but i will not be able to fully explore with you all of these nor their underlying economic theories, as my time is limited. however, even though these economic considerations are important, things can also be shaped in a decisive way by the course of day - to - day developments. this is why we speak of path dependence. i would like to illustrate this point with the topic of disruption, which has often been discussed in connection with the path taken by banking. disruption means the fear that fintechs, and especially tech giants, might offer far more innovative financial services much more cheaply, which would very quickly transform them into overpowering rivals for traditional institutions. that is not as far - fetched as it may sound – we have already seen disruption in other sectors. and there have already been disruptive developments in the financial sector. just take stock market trading, for example, much of which left the trading floor quite some time ago. but thus far, disruption has only affected individual components of banking. no technological innovation has been able to fully replace the economic functions of banks. from our experiences with banking transformation in germany, i don ’ t see widespread disruption happening today or in the foreseeable future. right now, day - to - day relations between fintechs and banks in germany can best be described as “ complicated ". we are currently seeing almost every model conceivable in the business world, from traditional fintech takeovers and white label banking to the idea of the bank as a digital ecosystem. while fintechs started off being quite feisty towards the established institutions, we are now seeing a diverse coexistence based on competition, cooperation and expanding the service offering. the takeaway from what i have said so far is that that the story of digitalisation is still being written, paragraph for paragraph. much depends on external events : what payment methods will play a role in future? how much personal contact will customers need in matters that require a high level of trust? how relevant is the wish to receive all services from a single provider? how much of a given technology is simply hype? therefore it is not a surprise,

if the latter grants further credit to bridge the difficult spell or agrees to a haircut if the borrower becomes insolvent. the value of equity capital, by contrast, always moves in line with events. equity capital is rather like an insurance policy against risk and creates a buffer that can absorb losses. boosting the role played by equity capital financing thus curbs the incidence of insolvencies and diminishes fluctuations in investment and growth. let us not forget that equity capital showcased this stabilising quality during the course of the european debt crisis. debt financing in europe was seen to be more susceptible to capital flight than was equity capital financing. this experience would suggest it is worth considering doing away with the unequal tax treatment of equity and debt capital. reforming the corporate taxation regime is naturally a difficult task, and strong political will would be needed to push it through. but introducing a more neutral tax regime for equity and debt capital would not only reduce the appeal of being highly leveraged, but also boost efficiency levels across the board. as for the goal of integrating europe ’ s capital markets more deeply, there are a number of areas offering quick wins, one of which is the market for high - quality securitisations. although europe ’ s securitisation markets came through the financial crisis relatively unscathed, they are lacklustre by comparison. that ’ s why a handful of initiatives have been launched to rekindle the continent ’ s markets in securitised products. these include the european commission ’ s efforts to establish a framework for simple, transparent and standardised ( sts ) securitisations. emphasising these three qualities is crucial, given the lessons learned from the crisis. the securitised products which contributed to the crisis were neither simple, transparent nor standardised. quite the opposite, in fact – there was a proliferation of complex and opaque products that led to the problems we are all too familiar with. so in my eyes, the commission ’ s initiative is a sensible move to revitalise the securitisation market and promote the flow of funding to the real economy. bis central bankers ’ speeches speaking as a banking regulator, it is nonetheless important, of course, to regulate securitisations appropriately. what we should avoid at all costs is a situation in which we soften the existing financial market regulation in an effort to nurture certain market segments. another quick win would be to standardise the regime for private placements