speeches all these questions call for a coherent response. in my view, this response could be the further development of the banking union and of the piecemeal regulation of the financial system into a real capital markets union at european union level. financial markets are complex and a capital markets union would affect a large number of different areas. allow me therefore, in conclusion, to draw attention to three points. first, we must be certain that a stringent regulation of the banking system does not lead to a shifting of bad risks into the non - banking sectors, without ensuring that they cannot cause systemic damage there. apart from the fact that the term “ shadow banking ” is a particularly unfortunate one, i regard transparency as being very important here. at the same time, only those areas should be regulated which can in fact trigger systemic risk. innovations in the financial sector should not be blocked per se. second, many financial instruments are not uniformly european and are sometimes insufficiently comparable because of a lack of standards and a lack of transparency. i have already mentioned the problem of abs. the lack of proper information in this area is a problem for smes ’ access to credit. here and in relation to many other financial instruments, regulatory actions can help to support the market. as i also mentioned, the joint paper by the bank of england and the ecb may provide a good basis here. third, in the field of payment systems and securities settlement there are also challenges that a capital markets union must address : despite much progress over the past decade in payment systems, securities settlement in the euro area remains fragmented, inefficient and not very customer - friendly. this is not just a problem for smaller businesses, for whom adapting to different conditions in the member states often entails high costs, but also for the integration and functioning of the internal market as a whole. possible solutions include harmonised european market infrastructures for retail and large - value payment systems and the processing of securities transactions, as well as a coordinated and more harmonised monitoring of critical market infrastructures. in all these areas, in which the eurosystem is competent, relevant initiatives were launched several years ago and have already made significant progress. in retail payments, for example, since august 2014 there has been no distinction between national credit transfers and direct debits of businesses and individuals, and cross - border ones. this, and the fact that the iban has become a part of our daily lives, shows how far we have progressed in the

yves mersch : the european central bank ’ s role in overcoming the crisis speech by mr yves mersch, member of the executive board of the european central bank, at the unicredit business dialogue, hamburg, 17 june 2013. * * * ladies and gentlemen, many thanks for the invitation to the business dialogue. when i last gave a speech in hamburg – almost exactly two years ago – i also focused on overcoming the crisis. though the crisis is indeed not over yet, much has certainly happened in the meantime : • we have a powerful set of instruments for overcoming the crisis ; • the economic governance framework at european level has been reinforced ; • we are on the path towards a banking union that can break the negative feedback loop between banks and sovereign debtors. the organisers have asked me to address the ecb ’ s role in this context and i ’ m happy to honour their request. but let me make it quite clear from the start : the ecb has an explicit mandate. our task is to ensure price stability in the euro area, and our non - standard measures have contributed to that objective. but monetary policy cannot be called on to overcome the crisis. a sustainable resolution to the crisis lies in the hands of the member states. so this evening i would like to look at two questions : • first, what is the role of monetary policy in overcoming the crisis? • second, are the euro area governments living up to their responsibility to eliminate the causes of the crisis? let me begin with the role of the ecb. the ecb ’ s core task is to ensure price stability. that has not changed, nor will it change. we have a clear mandate, which was conferred on us by the member states ’ governments at supra - national level under the european treaties. it is virtually cast in stone. at the same time, we have operational leeway in choosing how to fulfil this mandate – provided that we stay within its limits. during the crisis it emerged that, in some places, the transmission of our monetary policy signals to the real economy was restricted or uneven. in central banking we speak of a distorted monetary transmission mechanism. we therefore took non - standard measures so that our monetary policy would be more effectively passed through to the financing conditions for the real economy. these nonstandard measures complement our traditional set of instruments. put simply : our interest rate decisions are aimed at price stability. the non - standard measures seek to ensure that the desired effect