suspicious transactions and identify owners of digital currencies. i ’ m quite sure that further steps will be taken to regulate this market. how do you see the prospect of central bank digital currencies? this is an area where central banks tread with great caution, because different jurisdictions face different trends in the demand for cash, and because we have to assess the full impact of any change in the way we operate, both for the citizens of our countries and for the structure of financial intermediation. in that respect, i would make a clear distinction between wholesale and retail applications. starting with wholesale markets, we see that distributed ledger technology ( dlt ) has a lot of potential for market infrastructures. all major central banks are looking into it. the committee on payments and market infrastructures ( cpmi ) of the bank for international settlements, which i chair, published a report on it in february 2017. the ecb has undertaken a pilot project with the bank of japan in this area. we concluded that the technology is not yet mature enough to migrate large - value payment systems – in our case, target2 – to a dlt - based infrastructure, but we ’ ll continue to study it carefully. the question will arise as to whether central banks could at some point provide central bank money to financial market infrastructures in a digital form. we are still in the early stages of that discussion, but it is a relevant one. 5 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches is this similar to the real - time gross settlement ( rtgs ) renewal programme under way in the united kingdom? indeed, the bank of england sees potential benefits from dlt for future rtgs systems, although, like us, it believes that this technology it is not yet sufficiently mature. but we will continue to look into it. as for the retail side, that is, central bank digital currencies replacing banknotes and coins, we are much more prudent. first, there are only a limited number of countries where demand for cash is clearly on a downward trend. sweden is faced with such a situation, but in the euro area we are not. we are therefore not being pushed to go in that direction. second, we also have to consider the implications for security and trust in the currency. today, we invest a lot of resources in fighting the counterfeiting of banknotes. what would fraud, and fraud combat, look like in an environment with a digital currency? and third, we want to

economic growth broadens the economic basis for financing ageing - related costs. second, reforming the social security systems should reduce expenditure pressures. finally, a swift and decisive reduction of current debt levels should contribute to alleviating fiscal burdens and to preparing financially for upcoming ageing. low debt levels reduce the interest burden on the budget, thus creating more room for growth - enhancing tax cuts or for financing expenditure relating to ageing populations. although the ageing of populations is a gradual process, this should not induce us to regard it as less urgent. in europe, a major acceleration of the ageing process is expected to set in around 2010. postponing the implementation of the required policy response would, over time, further increase the extent of necessary adjustments, and may shift a larger part of the debt burden to future generations. fiscal policy frameworks in other monetary unions before addressing the relevance of fiscal rules for latin america and the caribbean, let me first say something about the use of fiscal rules in other monetary unions of interest, notably the west african economic and monetary union ( waemu ), the central african economic and monetary community ( cemac ) and - closer to the netherlands antilles - the eastern caribbean monetary union ( eccu ). the programmes agreed upon by the two african monetary unions - the name of one of which has even been based on arrangements in the eu, namely the waemu ’ s convergence, stability, growth, and solidarity pact - require annual fiscal balances to be in surplus or in balance, a limitation of the domestic and foreign debt ratio to 70 % of gdp and a reduction of the inflation rate to 3 %. the monetary council of the eastern caribbean central bank, which comprises the finance ministers of its eight member states, has adopted so - called benchmarks, limiting budget deficits to 3 % of gdp, outstanding public sector debt to no more than 60 % of gdp and debt service revenues to no more than 15 % of current revenue. it may be useful to assess the institutional set - up of these agreements on the basis of eu experience, in particular with regard to the required monitoring, the incentive structure and the time frame. as regards monitoring, on the basis of eu experience, a regular and frank regional surveillance of all participating countries forms an important incentive to compliance. the same applies to the obligation for countries that fail, or that are expected not to comply with the rules, to define a programme of corrective measures. finally, sanctions in the form of