mr duisenberg ’ s opening statement at the european parliament on 18 january 1999 introductory statement by the president of the european central bank, dr willem f. duisenberg, before the european parliament ’ s sub - committee on monetary affairs in brussels on 18 / 1 / 99. on 1 january 1999 a new chapter in european economic history was opened. after years of intense and thorough preparation, the launch of the single currency in europe was accomplished successfully. today, just a little more than two weeks after this historic event, it is a great privilege for me to be here at the european parliament for another exchange of views with your committee. i should like to begin my statement by reviewing the changeover to the euro, including money market developments during the first two weeks of the single currency. i shall then go on to summarise the assessment by the governing council of the european central bank ( ecb ) of the economic environment in which the new currency has been launched and which has shaped our initial decisions about monetary policy. moreover, i shall comment on some of the challenges that lie ahead. finally, i shall touch briefly upon some issues related to the communication policy of the european central bank, after which i shall, as usual, stand ready to answer any questions you might have. a. transition to the euro the transition of the banking and finance community from the national currencies to the euro in only three and half days after the publication of the conversion rates was, indeed, a success. the smooth migration of all electronic systems and procedures was a sign of the quality of the preparatory work carried out over recent months and years. in our view, the workforce that was directly involved in the changeover in the global financial markets - including all major financial centres outside the euro area - was probably higher than the 50, 000 reported by the media. within the eurosystem, which comprises the ecb and the 11 participating national central banks ( ncbs ), preparations had been ongoing for some time. the first plan of action for the changeover weekend had already been approved by the emi council in march 1998. after the establishment of the ecb, the governing council examined reports on the changeover at four of its meetings. during the changeover weekend several thousand staff members were at work or on call at the ecb and the ncbs. the major concern of the governing council was to avoid a breakdown in the transition to the euro - at the ecb, at any ncb or within any

, and to avoid that the increased use of digital means might be a source of exclusion for some categories, due to the lack of digital infrastructure or digital skills. under the italian presidency, the global partnership for financial inclusion will identify the gaps in digital financial inclusion, uncovered by the crisis, and explore viable solutions to address them, by looking at the state of development and accessibility of digital infrastructure, the degree of financial and digital literacy, the adequacy of the regulatory and supervisory framework. digitalization and financial services innovation also set the stage for some key priorities identified by the italian presidency for the work on financial regulation, coordinated by the fsb in collaboration with the standard setting bodies. as the pandemic has increased the use of digital financial services and remote work tools, an important objective is to promote safety and resilience of the financial system by strengthening cybersecurity in the financial sector. following up on the cyber incident recovery and response ( cirr ) toolkit developed by the fsb under the saudi presidency, the italian presidency will focus on cooperating to achieve greater harmonisation in specific areas such as reporting of cyber incidents. the italian presidency is also engaged to achieve more efficient and secure crossborder payment systems, building upon the roadmap for enhancing cross - border payment arrangements and infrastructures developed under the saudi presidency and facilitating the achievement of its 2021 committed deliverables. related to this, we will continue the review of regulatory, supervisory and oversight challenges of global stablecoins and of remaining financial stability concerns. let me briefly recall the recent developments and arguments underlying the g20 objective to improve cross - border payments and the italian presidency commitment to take it forward in 2021. the pandemic has led to a sharp acceleration in the spread of digital payment instruments in many countries of the world. for example, in the second quarter of this year the number of mobile payments transactions processed by chinese banks increased by 25 per cent with respect to the same period of 2019. in the us, survey evidence suggests that nearly one in five respondents plan to increase the use of mobile payments due to covid - 19. in the euro area, around 40 per cent of consumers have decided to reduce the use of cash for their daily shopping since march, partly because of the fear of being infected by the virus via banknotes or proximity to the cashier. in italy, the use of payment cards rose and the use of cash decreased even over the summer, when the risk of infection was low