important all along. modern central banks, in fact, have their origin in the transition from a payment technology based on commodity money to one based on fiduciary money. payments made in fiduciary money differ from those made with commodity money in that they are carried out by transferring liabilities of a third party. hence, the value of these liabilities and the cost of effecting payments, namely the " quality " of payments, depend to a large extent on the standing of the third - party issuers, their organisational efficiency, and the structure of the money market. • one may wonder what kind of impact securities clearing and settlement systems ( scsss ) have on the issuance of money by central banks. the exponential growth of securities trades and the increasing use of securities to collateralise obligations can give an idea of how a key role of the central bank is affected by these systems. but here i do not wish to focus on how important scsss are for central banks, but on how important central bank money is for scsss. • in the traditional configuration, each domestic csd settled the cash leg of securities transactions in the account of its central bank. today, many argue that in a multi - currency environment settlement in central bank money is unpractical because there is no " global " central bank able to provide finality in a variety of currencies. • international fora, such as the cpss, have recognised that in a multi - currency environment, commercial bank money can be used as settlement mean, provided that it carries limited risks and these risks are properly addressed. a practical example of central bank cooperation to meet the challenges of global systems is cls. cls will settle in commercial bank money for practical reasons ( i. e. different time zones ), but a wide range of risk control measures have been put in place in order to control risks and, in particular, the concentration of financial risks on a single entity. • but the role of central bank money is also challenged when turning from global to domestic systems. i believe this is due to one of the trends pointed out earlier. the struggle to be at the centre applies not only to securities, but also to cash. every commercial bank ( or csd ) would like to be in the position of the central bank in order to exploit the monopoly over the money supply and obtain additional profits. but, likewise, no commercial bank would like to see a competitor occupying the position of

timely euro area economic, monetary and financial statistics are of paramount importance for the ecb ’ s decision - making. this applies not only to the single monetary policy, but also to the other escb tasks, including those in the areas of financial stability and payment systems. statistics are themselves one of the main deliverables of the ecb, providing market participants, analysts, academics, the media and the general public with the aggregate financial data they need. for instance, the harmonised national average interest rates on the deposits and loans of households and corporations that are published every month by the ecb and the ncbs provide citizens and firms with very useful preliminary insights. 1 concerning the key developments in ecb statistics over the last two years, i would like to highlight the following 2 : 1. since june of last year the ecb and eurostat have jointly compiled and published quarterly euro area accounts. 3 these accounts can be considered the “ national accounts ” for the euro area and provide a complete and consistent overview of its economic, financial and monetary developments. a fairly unique feature of the euro area accounts is their almost entirely consistent representation of “ real ” and financial developments, which greatly facilitates integrated analyses and permits further enhanced cross - checking of the economic and monetary analyses that feed into the overall assessment of the ecb ’ s monetary policy stance. 2. the euro area accounts record not only the economic and financial transactions, but also the financial balance sheets of all institutional sectors ( i. e. households, nonfinancial corporations, financial corporations and general government ). they integrate and complement more timely and frequent statistics, for instance by providing a sectoral breakdown of the broad monetary aggregate m3 and by providing hitherto unavailable quarterly data on household and corporate income, expenditure, savings and wealth. 3. since july 2007 the ecb has estimated daily yield curves reflecting the implied market remuneration rates of euro area central government bonds for residual maturities ranging from 3 months to 30 years. these curves help to gauge market expectations regarding economic and financial activity, as well as being used for monetary policy purposes. the curves are presented in a very user - friendly way, using the latest web technologies. 4 4. the available monthly statistics on outstanding amounts of short - term european paper have been supplemented with daily statistics on yields. this has enabled the ecb to ensure transparency while respecting the confidentiality of individual price or yield data. 5. the external statistics of the ecb now provide separate data for brazil,