economic terms. thus, only in the late 1980s new progress was made that led to the treaty of maastricht more than 10 years ago ( on february 7, 1992 ). the exact timetable and the name for the new currency were determined by the heads of state at the end of 1995. finally, the euro was introduced to financial markets in 1999, and three years later at the retail level as a physical currency. as a result of these decisions, and in order to get in shape for the proposed monetary union, the member countries embarked on a remarkable process of economic convergence. fiscal policy was tightened, inflation declined to low single digits, and the legal systems were brought in line. the creation of emu was a careful process that built on international best practices, and on a large body of economic research. it was of utmost importance to ensure the trust of the markets in as large and diverse a geographical area as the euro area. thus, in order to foster the market´s trust in " monetary stability, " the eurosystem was built around the principle of price stability. its framework was laid down in international treaties and enjoys constitutional status in all member countries. of its many features, i would like to stress the following five principles, which i consider essential for the success of emu : 1 ) independence of the central bank first of all, the treaty of maastricht has endowed the european system of central banks ( escb ) with a very high degree of political independence. this came as a recognition of the empirical evidence that good inflation performance around the world is linked to central bank independence. while the economic profession had started to subscribe to this view a long time ago, the issue was more contentious at the political level. the european monetary union comprises countries with very different macroeconomic policy traditions. in some countries, the objective of price stability was subordinate to other economic goals, and often the financing needs of the state dominated monetary policy. this was not the case in a second group of countries, where price stability ranked high in the eyes of the public, and legal systems set barriers to fiscal incursions into the central bank. the last decade saw a remarkable convergence around this second, stability - oriented approach, which is fully reflected in the design of the escb. the governing council of the ecb is the central decision - making body of the independent eurosystem. it brings together the 6 members of the executive board of the ecb and the 12 governors of the national

said, ‘ if you had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse ’. the industry needs to lead development. as a regulator, we want our financial sector to benefit from continuous progressive development, but without creating undue financial or monetary stability risks. our message to investors and fintech players would then be, keep innovating with these perspectives in mind. rest assured, we will play our part in promoting a safe and conducive environment for innovation. as part of our initiative, we also from time to time, organise challenge events to recognise innovation and impactful solutions through incentives and awards. the most recent being during myfintech week. but later in the year, we will have another event and recognition series. i would thus like to invite you to participate in the royal award for islamic finance impact challenge prize 2022. this is a new initiative that aims to reward innovative creations and solutions that strengthen the economic and social resilience of financially impacted communities globally through the application of shariah principles. but you ’ ll have to hurry as applications have been open awhile and will close on 25 march 2022. with that, i wish you success and a productive engagement today. thank you. 1 various publications of fintech malaysia report mckinsey article, june 2021, “ financial data unbound : the value of open data for individuals and institutions ” [ link to article ] 4 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches