##ing low long - term interest rates, the short - term interest rate should be higher in order to achieve appropriate restrictiveness of the monetary policy resulting from the entire yield curve. while it is difficult to assess which hypothesis is correct, central banks, as sailors did in the old days, should apply two iron rules : firstly, frequently determine their position, secondly, use as many waypoints as possible. this means that, especially where new phenomena emerge or there are structural transformations, the monetary policy must not be described using just a few simple indicators, as e. g. inflation and output gap in the taylor rule. monetary policy decisions should rather be a product of a complex analysis of a number of indicators and data and cross - checked with qualitative information. in turn, another federal reserve governor, donald kohn 29, devoted his recent address to the analysis of when and on what conditions the central banks should respond to rapid changes of asset prices. in kohn ’ s opinion, there are two possible approaches. according to one of them, described as the conventional monetary policy, the central bank focuses on stabilising the inflation, treats changes in asset prices as an exogenous process and does not attempt to influence asset prices whatsoever. the other option, described by kohn as the “ extra action policy ”, allows for a deviation of current inflation from a level determined as stable in return for improvement of the perspectives of achieving price stability in the future. however, the extra action policy does not mean piercing the speculative bubbles by central banks, and means rather “ taking out ” of additional insurance against possible negative shocks, which may happen in the future. in kohn ’ s opinion, the extra action policy may be run very rarely and only where the three conditions are met : • the central bank must be able to identify asset bubbles in a timely manner and high certainty as to the correctness of analysis conclusions ; • there must be a high probability that a slight tightening of the monetary policy will be able to stand against the speculative activity on a given assets market ; • the expected improvement of the future economic situation resulting from a smaller speculative bubble must be significant and higher than the costs incurred by the economy in the aftermath of running the extra action policy. to recapitulate this train of thought, kohn was very sceptical whether the three above - mentioned conditions can be sufficiently met ; however, he did not preclude that in the future, the understanding of economic processes will improve as

the use of payment cards will be more efficient, as consumers will be able to use the same card for all euro payments. this will reduce the necessity for people to carry cash. innovative services can be offered to consumers irrespective of national borders. the long - term goal of the banking industry is that the sepa payment instruments will only be used in electronic form. payments can then be easily combined with other e - services in the case of both individual and corporate clients. these include e - invoicing, mobile or internet payment initiation, airline e - tickets, credit advice or e - reconciliation. as a consequence, consumers will spend less time handling payments. everything will be easier, faster and cheaper... in the long term. payment cards are becoming a favourite payment instrument with consumers, and are increasingly replacing cheques and cash payments. the use of cards is thus expected to grow in the future. thanks to the creation of a single euro payments area, acquirers will be able to process all sepacompliant card payments, even across borders. in the sepa environment, merchants will be able to choose any card payment processing entity in the euro ; this will increase competition and reduce costs. point - of - sale terminals in the euro area will become increasingly standardised. as a consequence, there will be a wider choice of terminal providers, and merchants will be able to accept a wider range of cards with a single terminal. the increased competition between payment card systems should also drive down fees. this is a vision of anticipated benefits for an integrated europe, but the questions i would like to ask the panelists and all of you today are as follows : will sepa reinforce the competitiveness of polish entrepreneurs? ; how fast should we act? ; what roles are there to be played and who should play them so as to ensure the success of the polish economy, enterprises and consumers in the sepa era? it seems to me that these are the key questions to be answered now so that forum sepa polska could develop, in the months to come, an optimal strategy for launching new payment products in the polish market. let ’ s also have a look at our own local situation. by providing new payment instruments and euro area - wide infrastructures, sepa will ensure that banks expand their business and compete on a euro area level, as any bank can offer its services more easily to any individual in the euro area. banks can also expand their business by offering their customers