december 2017 … ”. second, an odyssean element of state contingency that clarifies the governing council ’ s reaction function should it not see “ a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation consistent with its inflation aim. ” and third, since last december an additional odyssean clarification that expresses our preparedness to increase the size and / or duration of the app under certain conditions, i. e. “ if the outlook becomes less favourable, or if financial conditions become inconsistent with further progress towards a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation … ”. taken together, the ecb ’ s current forward guidance encompasses a carefully expounded series of expectations involving both key policy rates and asset purchases. indeed, guidance on policy rates is linked to the app timeline, with the governing council ’ s expectation being that they will remain at present or lower levels “ well past the horizon of our net asset purchases. ” the logic behind this guidance, in very simple terms, is that it may be beneficial to retain full control over the expected path of future short - term policy rates, while allowing a gradual decompression of the term premium if and when we see solid progress towards a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation. at any rate, for our forward guidance, both on rates and the app, to be credible, we need to keep our policy expectations well aligned with our evolving assessment of the balance of risks and the outlook for inflation – this is the delphic part of our forward guidance. we would pay a high price in terms of our credibility if we failed to adapt our forward guidance once we had changed our views on the outlook. i will come back to this point later but let me note, for now, that a too gradual adjustment of our guidance could ultimately be quite costly. indeed, central banks and markets may have moved towards what jeremy stein and co - author have called a “ gradualist ” equilibrium. 8 this is a situation in which central banks make gradual changes to policy tools and communication in order not to upset the market. in such an environment, any change to the central bank ’ s policy inclination will have a major effect on asset prices. the reason is that markets have come to expect the initial central bank move – no matter how incremental – to be followed by many similar moves in the same direction. this effect is likely to be greater in conditions where there is an exceptionally large amount of monetary stimulus in place. it makes the expectations of

elizabeth mccaul : supervisory expectations on cloud outsourcing speech by ms elizabeth mccaul, member of the supervisory board of the european central bank, at the kpmg cloud conference 2024, frankfurt am main, 17 october 2024. * * * introduction it is my great pleasure to speak today at the kpmg cloud conference 2024. it is a pity that i cannot be with you in person, but i am sure that you are having a wonderful conference. there is no doubt that cloud outsourcing offers opportunities to scale operations efficiently, reduce costs and enhance flexibility by leveraging cloud providers'advanced infrastructure and services. indeed, using the cloud can be a viable strategy for banks to reduce the complexity of their it operations, which would be a welcome development. but it also introduces new risks and new challenges, including preparing it systems for use in a cloud environment. in particular, it presents risks related to it and data security and vendor lock - in which, if not properly managed, could lead to operational vulnerabilities and business disruptions. i would like to make three main points in my speech today. first, cloud outsourcing is rapidly transforming the banking sector, with a significant rise in adoption and expenditure. but it also increases banks'risk exposure, which demands heightened responsibility and robust governance frameworks. second, when adopting cloud strategies, banks should retain full accountability for outsourced services, ensuring clear roles, rigorous risk management and appropriate it security measures. third, our supervisory expectations should not be seen as regulatory hurdles, but as strategic enablers to enhance resilience, operational continuity and data protection in banks'cloud strategies. relevance of the cloud cloud services are transforming the economic landscape and reshaping traditional business models. according to a report by gartner, worldwide end - user spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow by 20. 4 % to total usd 675. 4 billion in 20241, driven largely by sectors like banking. in our own stocktake, we have found that essentially all significant institutions under our supervision use cloud services. cloud services account for approximately 15 % of all outsourcing contracts, with half of these contracts covering the outsourcing of critical or important functions. moreover, cloud expenses are among the fastest - rising outsourcing costs. but with this growth comes increased responsibility. 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches third - party risk management, including cloud outsourcing, is high on the list