speeches political fragmentation to jeopardise these achievements. ultimately, what matters is that we strike the right balance between solidarity and responsibility and that we embrace a vision which secures the integrity and resilience of the euro area. we all know that this is not easy. but failure to do so would leave the ecb alone at the forefront of macroeconomic stabilisation in the euro area. this is a risk not worth taking. thank you. 1 see cœure, b. ( 2018 ), “ the euro area ’ s three lines of defence ”, speech at the conference “ deepening of emu ”, ljubljana, 2 february. 3 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches

that banks are increasingly challenged by technological shifts. new competitors are emerging rapidly and threaten to conquer banks ’ market shares in some of their core income - generating areas. crowd funding or peer - to - peer lending, for example, has the potential to affect bank lending services. e - trading or robo - advisory, meanwhile, may crowd banks out of typical investment management or advisory functions. other areas of competition involve the provision of payment services. this, of course, does not mean that banks have become redundant or a drag on society. banks play a key social role of pooling savings and engaging in maturity and risk transformation, and they should continue doing so. but it does raise two important questions : first, are we at a tipping point where the future of banks is challenged? and second, should regulators care? that is, should we protect banks from recent technological shifts and the emergence of new competitors? should regulators have a preconceived idea of which financial structure is best for society, bearing in mind the trade - off i mentioned before? so far, the regulatory approach has generally been built on the assumption that opening up market access to new fintech companies will increase social surplus and spur innovation, similar 3 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches to what we have seen in other network industries. at the same time, rules are still in place that protect incumbents. for example, fintech firms lack access to the customer transaction data they would need to provide a broader range of financial services – data that banks can use to cross - sell financial services at a price that might be higher than if information - sharing was less restricted. as an example, the revision of europe ’ s payment services directive ( psd2 ), due to be implemented by eu member states in january 2018, is designed to introduce more competition by requiring banks to share account information. with access to such data, fintech companies could increasingly shake up the banking sector. in this regulatory landscape, i see two broad scenarios for the future. in the first one, incumbents rise to the challenge. they join forces with start - ups, embrace new technologies, cut costs and gain new sources of revenue. some of these partnerships are happening as we speak. the outcome under this scenario is generally benign as, first, new technologies are likely to spread more rapidly through banks ’ existing networks, fostering productivity and growth, and, second, as current prudential regulation is already geared towards banks, thereby preserving financial stability.