increasing business cycle synchronisation among participating countries. while this impact is likely to be taking place already, the period of time needed for its full effect to develop is very uncertain. although useful lessons can be gained from a comparison with the us, these should not be overemphasised. as a matter of fact, some important differences between the euro area and the us can also be identified. in the us, for example, the importance of stock markets is higher, and these markets can represent a mechanism amplifying the impact of shocks in the real economy. moreover, evidence has been found that in the us the adjustment to asymmetric shocks is faster than in the euro area, largely because of the latter's lower mobility of capital and labour. in particular, labour mobility, which is one of the most important adjustment mechanisms in the us, is often found to be much lower in the euro area. while this is partly offset by the increased mobility of capital, which has been enhanced by the creation of the single market in europe, in many euro area countries labour still remains too immobile. a currency union needs flexible markets when labour mobility is low, the efficient response to economic shocks having asymmetrical effects on euro area countries requires prompt adjustments in prices and wages at local levels. flexibility in price and wage setting is therefore particularly crucial for the euro area. more precisely, an increased flexibility would allow regions or national economies to adjust more rapidly and smoothly to shocks affecting particular sectors. we should always bear in mind, moreover, that our economies operate in an increasingly competitive global environment requiring ever more frequent adjustments, particularly in some sectors. for these and many other reasons, structural reforms aimed at increasing mobility, boosting competition and reducing rigidities and distortions in goods, service and labour markets are needed in the euro area. in product markets, some progress has been made over the past few years. these markets have become more integrated and some sectors, such as the network industries, are being liberalised. the adoption of the european company statute by the council of ministers, for example, is a step in the right direction. this statute allows for, and regulates, the creation of firms operating on an eu - wide basis and being governed by community law. another ambitious reform is the liberalisation of the eu's postal sector, although its full implementation will take time. despite these and other encouraging developments, the pace of liberalisation has been uneven across participating countries and more efforts are

rba. gov. au / speeches / 2019 / sp - ag - 2019 - 05 - 16. html 2 / 8 5 / 17 / 2019 leaning in : towards better payment and clearing systems | speeches | rba furthermore, the reserve bank demonstrated its own commitment to the project in numerous ways. it was a member of the project steering committee and numerous working groups, committing senior resources to these groups. it also took up a shareholding in npp australia limited ( nppa ) and it built the fast settlement service to settle payments individually in real time, 24 / 7. a second reason why collaboration was successful was that most institutions realised that they were participating in a project that would have significant and broad benefits. there were already a number of fast retail payment services around the world and customers were increasingly expecting payments to keep up with their 24 / 7 lifestyle. i think that most participants understood this. a third element was the way that the project was organised with a dedicated independent team to manage the project and repeated reminders of the shared vision agreed early in the project's life. one key aspect of this was the social contract that all participants agreed to. this contract emphasised such things as constructive challenge, respect, active listening, positivity and innovative thinking. the result is that we now have a first - rate payments system infrastructure that will be a platform for ongoing innovation. in many respects, australia's fast payments system is at the cutting edge of such systems. we were not the first to have a fast payments system. but we have been able to learn from experience overseas and improve the model with features such as iso 20022 message formats, real - time settlement and the addressing service. and the design of the system, which allows for competitive ‘ overlay ’ services to use the infrastructure, gives the system flexibility to meet the future needs of users of the australian payments system. since going live in february 2018, the system has been gradually increasing its volumes ( graph 1 ). in april, 16 million transactions were processed through the npp amounting to $ 13 billion. this is still small relative to the volumes that pass through other retail payment systems. but it is growing steadily and at least as quickly as some comparable overseas fast payment services when they were introduced ( graph 2 ). one of the positive aspects has been the broad participation of many small financial institutions. customers of around 50 small banks, credit unions and building societies were able to make and receive fast payments from day 1 and