into the future. it is not as though things are standing still in other jurisdictions. in the area of real - time payments, we have seen major initiatives launched in sweden and singapore – countries we would often view as comparators in terms of their income levels and market structures. the swedish system was launched in december 2012 with a service known as swish, which enables households to send real - time payments via their mobile phones on a 24 / 7 basis, 365 days a year. singapore ’ s system, known as fast, was launched in march this year. these two initiatives have wide participation, including by all the larger banks in those countries and many of the smaller institutions. there are some other countries, with lower income levels, lower penetration of electronic payments and without universally “ banked ” populations, that have also made the leap to fast retail payments. these include mexico with its spei system, south africa with real - time clearing and india with its immediate payments service. is there a plausible reason to accept australia falling behind? delivering the npp is also, in my opinion, in the interests of the australian financial institutions, which are at the heart of payments today. it can be expected to lead to further growth in electronic payments and a reduction in costs. it will maintain the ongoing relevance of the current players. if those players do not provide australian end - users with the services they want, surely others will seek to do so. alternatively, the reserve bank would be duty bound to consider a regulatory approach. so our message to the industry is : stay the course. continue the goodwill and prodigious effort that has brought you to this point. deliver on the commitments you have collectively bis central bankers ’ speeches made. let us together build a payments infrastructure that is efficient, open to competition and that will support innovation into the future. i thank apca and its officers in particular for the efforts they have made, and continue to make, in the npp and across the payments landscape. and i wish the broader payments industry success in its efforts to improve australia ’ s payments system and look forward to ongoing cooperation between the bank and the industry. bis central bankers ’ speeches

three potential channels of effects from these events to australia. the first is a direct trade link. australia ’ s exports of goods and services to europe are actually quite modest ( table 1 ). by far the biggest trade relationships these days are with asia. hence, a bigger impact of the euro crisis on australia would come indirectly via trade with asia. it is pretty clear that growth across much of east asia moderated in 2011 and that there has been some effect of the slower euro area economy on asian exports. there have been other forces at work too – the japanese tsunami a year ago had significant effects on production chains around asia. these effects had probably not completely disappeared when the floods in thailand had another significant impact, which may still be affecting the data. so detecting the effects of weaker european growth against the backdrop of the supply disturbances to trade patterns following these natural disasters might be a little like trying to pick up one conversation in a crowded room : there ’ s a lot of background noise. bis central bankers ’ speeches but most of the high - frequency data on trade and production did not seem to show the slowing intensifying as we went into 2012. it is too early yet to say that a new strengthening is under way. but we do not seem to be seeing the signs of a rapid fall in trade that we saw in late 2008. a reference to 2008 brings me to the third channel through which we think about the effects of the european crisis. and it is perhaps the most unpredictable and potentially most damaging kind : the financial link. it would not be the direct exposures of australian institutions to the most troubled countries of europe that would be of concern, because those are quite small. it would be the more general impact on global markets of a european problem. what we saw in late 2008 was effectively a closure of funding markets for financial institutions for a period, after the failure of lehman brothers. these sorts of events affect virtually all countries, because the impacts on credit conditions, trade finance, share prices, and household and business confidence – all of which lead to precautionary behaviour – occur almost instantaneously everywhere. there was a period late in 2011 where there was a genuine fear that this could happen again. funding markets tightened up and effectively closed for many european banks. interbank activity more or less ceased in europe. the cocktail of sovereign credit concerns, large bank exposures to those sovereigns, possible bank capital shortfalls and prospective large debt rollover needs of banks, not to mention