axel a weber : central banks and globalisation introduction by professor axel a weber, president of the deutsche bundesbank, to the 10th bundesbank spring conference ( in cooperation with the imfs ), eltville, 22 may 2008. * * * introduction ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure for me to welcome you to the 10th bundesbank spring conference, which has been organised in cooperation with the institute for monetary and financial stability ( imfs ). and for those who have never been to our training centre before – welcome to our facilities here! i am sure you will like this location, not least because of its direct proximity to the rhine and the picturesque town centre of eltville. the title of this spring conference is “ central banks and globalisation ”. with regard to globalisation, i think it is quite justified to say that this term has been a key economic topic over the past ten years – and i don ’ t think this is going to change in the foreseeable future. why is this so? nowadays, there is almost no economic phenomenon that is not influenced – at least to a certain extent – by what we call “ globalisation ”. “ globalisation ” seems to be everywhere – a search on google yields more than 25 million hits. evidently, the process of globalisation has many different historical, political, social, and economic facets. some of the economic facets – in particular, those that are of interest to central banks – are going to be covered over the course of the next two days, as highlighted in the conference programme. when looking at this programme, i am very pleased to see that – once again – we have been able to bring together many distinguished participants who are going to present the results of their recent research on globalisation - related issues. i hope or, more specifically, i am pretty sure that this conference will generate useful insights and that it will lead to a productive exchange of ideas and views among the participants. in my remarks over the next 15 minutes or so, i shall cover some issues related to globalisation which are of particular importance to central bank policymakers. therefore, after highlighting some basic characteristics with respect to globalisation, i shall focus on globalisation and inflation, leaving aside the important and interesting issue of globalisation and monetary policy. in this context, the fundamental question is whether globalisation has altered the setting for central banks, in particular with a view to delivering price stability. my basic conclusion will be

, therefore, is to examine this technology and its implications in detail and gather key insights about it. this is true, not least, for central banks and regulators. so what lies behind this technology? even when it comes to a basic definition, we see that the word blockchain is not always used to mean the same thing. often, the term “ distributed ledger technology ” is used as a synonym for blockchain. if we regard distributed ledger technology as the principle behind distributed databases, blockchain represents a sub - category thereof. however, there is, as yet, no uniform 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches definition of the term. an elementary understanding of the technology is a prerequisite for discussing its potential, which is why module 1, entitled “ blockchain – basics, technological achievements and general potential ", is dedicated to this question. blockchain became known, above all, as the technology behind the bitcoin cryptocurrency. the term is derived from the fact that transactions are grouped together in “ blocks ". these blocks are chained together through a complex mathematical procedure that is unforgeable and tamperproof. essentially, blockchain allows a ledger of transactions to be run on a decentralised basis within a network. the technology therefore enables the safe transmission of all manner of assets ( not just bitcoin ), without the need for confirmation from a central institution. with blockchain, reconciliation between participants occurs automatically. but what are we to do with this technical innovation? plato once said that : " necessity is the mother of invention ". but in the case of blockchain, we are seeing the exact opposite. the invention, ie blockchain, has already been born. now people in many places are searching for the necessity – for the specific cases where it can be applied in practice. blockchain - based technologies offer up the chance of simplifying complex intermediation processes for payment and settlement activities. virtually all payment service providers are therefore currently looking for ways to apply this technology. its use in payment transactions is an obvious choice, as the cryptocurrency bitcoin has already been created for this purpose. but does it make sense to use blockchain in this of all areas? and in what form should it be used in the area of payment transactions? these questions will be addressed in module 2 of the workshop : “ possible business cases for payments ". payment transactions based