justified economically across euroland. however, in countries outside the euro area, such as poland, the implementation of sepa should be subject to a thorough debate in a relevant community. this is why the national bank of poland appreciates the establishment of forum sepa polska by the polish banking community and is deeply convinced that all programmes and decisions worked out and made in the course of such cooperation will increase the satisfaction of poles who use services of national banks through making product offers more attractive, through increasing security and level of services and through reducing their prices. inhabitants of the euro area obtained many benefits upon the introduction of the euro in the cashless turnover in 1999 and in cash handling in 2001. transaction costs of foreign currency exchange disappeared, home bias on financial markets was reduced, risk premium decreased and the euro has become an important currency in which securities are issued on international financial markets. menzie chinn and jakob frankel, well - known american economists project that if great britain joins the euro area, the euro will replace the dollar as the international reserve currency 2 as early as in the late second decade of the 21st century, which might entail additional benefits for european consumers see also s quinn and w roberds “ an economic explanation of the early bank of amsterdam, debasement, bills of exchange, and the emergence of the first central bank ”, federal reserve bank of atlanta working paper 2006 - 13, september 2006. m chinn, j frankel, “ will the euro eventually surpass the dollar as leading international reserve currency? ”, presented at nber conference, newport, ri, 1 - 2 june 2005. since europe will be able to take advantage of what pierre - olivier gourinchas and helene rey describe as the “ exorbitant privilege ” 3. payment systems of the euroland countries do not follow these changes swiftly enough. these systems have supported national and international retail operations in various european currencies so far. the only exception were activities of the central banks under the aegis of the european central bank. these banks quickly developed and launched the target system for real - time gross settlements of large volume euro transactions. as regards the cashless turnover in pan - european relations, foreign currency exchange savings were the only measurable benefit stemming from the introduction of the euro for the consumers. apart from that, the settlement time and the costs of crossborder transactions remained on the same high level as before the implementation of the single currency. these costs were much higher than prices

this year would be between 4 % and 5 % and similar figures will apply to other candidate countries. if one compares this data with inflation rates in some of the eu countries, one cannot see much of a difference - look at holland. third, poland had managed to achieve a high level of disinflation while introducing a high level of price liberalization. it means there is only a limited scope for further corrective inflation. all but few prices are completely liberalized and driven by healthy market conditions. fourth, in respect to so - called ballassa samuelson effect, i agree with president duisenberg, that it is mostly an empirical issue. i think the extent of this effect has been overstated and overdone in many theoretical studies. empirical data in respect to poland has shown, that in the past the contribution of bs effect to the overall inflation rate has been in the range from 1 % to 1. 5 %. as a matter of fact, bs effect is also present in the eurozone, in countries like greece and portugal. this is not the reason for, as some people heralded, a weak euro. problems of greece are not responsible for weak euro that is, if one thinks euro is weak. the already mentioned disinflation, limited scope for future corrective inflation, and manageable level of bs effect make the maastricht inflation criteria achievable. fiscal criteria must be met in the interest of the countries concerned, as it would contribute to their economic growth. fifth, there is an intermediate period between the date of entry of poland and other candidate countries into the european union and membership of the monetary union. the question is, what is the optimal length of this period. i would like to point out, that it might be a rather turbulent time. economic forces behind convergence and rapid capital flows might create an economic roller caster. it may well be in the interest of the candidate countries to make this period as short as possible. sixth, it is true that any country entering the emu need to fix the exchange rate. one should not take for granted, however, that the longer the period of the intermediate regime the better, as it is not always true that longer wait produces more information about the proper rate of exchange. it may produce just more noise. seventh, both further efficient disinflation and strengthening long - term economic growth require completion of certain structural reforms in the candidate countries. there is no way around it.