mean? first, i believe we need a pan - european solution for payments that is governed at the european level. it needs to be useable at the physical point of sale as well as in e - commerce and ideally between individuals as well. this is what has been requested by the european commission and the eurosystem in their respective retail payment strategies. this task is, in my view, a job for the market players, because it is their business at stake. while i fully understand that it is not easy to reconcile different interests at the domestic or european level, simply going on as we have in the past is not a sustainable strategy in a rapidly growing digital world. second, we cannot just look at payments in isolation. future payments will be deeply embedded in broader digital ecosystems. we are on the cusp of building a complete digital universe in which people with electronic identities will interact with public administrations and private companies almost exclusively online, including, to some extent, for education and work. to ensure that we are able to design this new world in europe properly, we have to speed up our efforts to foster cooperation in network industries such as payments, try to build walkways with other important “ houses ” such as e - identity, and develop transparent and fair rules outlining how all these houses are to interact with each other within this new, complex digital ecosystem. with that in mind, i personally look forward to the prospect of a european digital identity wallet, as announced by the commission last week. third, there seems to be demand to consider how we can integrate our currency into this new digital universe. i do not believe that crypto assets are the best answer to the questions raised by 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches digitalisation. i still believe that “ real money ” in digital form is much better placed to do that. this could take the form of either tokenised commercial bank money or central bank digital money ( cbdc ). many central banks around the world are currently considering this option. and some, like the bahamas, have already introduced their own cbdc. but it is also quite clear that the reasons for going in that direction are highly varied. the eurosystem will decide in the near future whether to build on the analysis it has conducted and pursue a formal project. in view of this, i would like to raise the following points : we need to be clear about what we would like to achieve. form follows function. many observers equate cbdc with distributed

happens there will no doubt be some disruption, as always, and more so as it will be the first fed tightening for nine years and the ecb will be easing policy at the same time. so there is likely to be some turbulence in asset and foreign exchange markets. on the whole, though, i think we should regard the fed ’ s likely actions as a positive development. fed policy is still likely to be quite expansionary for some time. the punch bowl isn ’ t being taken away, its contents are just being made a little less potent. while that is going on our own economy continues its adjustment to the end of the investment phase of the “ mining boom ”. the massive run - up in resources sector capital spending that was a natural response to earlier very high prices is reversing, causing a drag on demand. so we hope for other sources of demand to speed up to help make up the difference. some of them are, though not as seamlessly as any of us would like. i ’ ve talked a lot about this before so i won ’ t labour the point. it is a major transition. we can hope to assist it, and the reserve bank is doing that, and will continue to lend what support it can, within the limits of its powers and consistent with its mandate. the decline in the exchange rate is assisting the transition ( as it assisted in absorbing the earlier phase of the mining boom ). but we have always said we cannot hope to fine - tune this transition, however much we may wish otherwise. looking back at the history of such episodes, of which there have been a few over the past century or more, if we come through this terms of trade event with neither a major outbreak of inflation in the upswing nor a major crash in the downswing, even if we have a period of sub - average growth in the process, we will have done far, far better than in any previous event of this kind, let alone one of this magnitude. i still think that is the most likely outcome. even so, the lower terms of trade mean that, all other things equal, the path of future incomes is not as high as it might have looked a few years ago. even allowing for the fact that we all knew, intellectually, that at least part of the boom was not permanent, there is a human tendency to project what we see now ( good or bad ) into the future. eventually reality intrudes and we have to re