##demic, received a boost. social distancing has further stressed the importance of digitalization in the economy and has driven a rapid increase in the use of digital financial services and e - commerce. however, to reap the benefits of the growth of digital financial services in the post - covid era, it will be necessary to close the digital divide at both national and international level by ensuring equal access to digital infrastructure as well as promoting financial and digital literacy. it is only fostering an inclusive financial and digital environment that we will fully exploit the potentialities of the digital economy to contribute to the wellbeing and prosperity of society as a whole. from a market perspective, compared to incumbents, in the aftermath of the pandemic, fintech firms may be better placed to react and meet the evolving needs of customers because they are by nature more agile and can rapidly adapt to a changing environment by delivering new and tailored solutions. traditional intermediaries, which were already managing to find the right balance between innovation and legacy, are now facing even more difficulties with the pandemic and will need to reset and reposition themselves against the backdrop of a faster - paced digitalization and of the next economic recovery. in this new world, supervisors and regulators will need to adopt policy tools that allow staying abreast of technological and market developments while overlooking the evolution of the sector and managing new macro and micro prudential risks. in order to do so, many jurisdictions have set up new institutional mechanisms called “ innovation facilitators ”, which include sandboxes and innovation hubs, that are meant to provide national authorities with new fora for knowledge - sharing with market operators and to support new firms or incumbents with fintech - related issues. in addition, the cross - sectoral and cross - border nature of fintech innovations will require different authorities to coordinate within and across countries to deliver holistic solutions to new phenomena such as ai or stablecoins, which will require a harmonized global response to prevent loopholes and regulatory arbitrage. in order to cope with these challenges, the bank of italy has recently launched its milano hub initiative, a new form of innovation facilitator that aims to be a link between authorities, firms and the academia and to foster wide private and public initiatives that help the transition to digital of the italian financial system. the milano hub is another step in the journey of the bank of italy in the fintech world, which started in the

‘ the g20 agenda in 2021, under italy ’ s leadership ’ global investor roundtable of the global foundation speech by daniele franco senior deputy governor of the banca d ’ italia rome, 3 february 2021 1. ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to contribute to the 2021 global investor roundtable of the global foundation. let me thank the secretary general steve howard for inviting me and for his kind introduction. governor visco addressed the rome roundtable last november and illustrated the prospects for the italian presidency of the group of twenty ( g20 ). i will update you on recent developments. i would like to start off by saying a few words about the context in which italy began its presidency. 2. we all know that the current global crisis is one of unprecedented magnitude. since the inception of the pandemic, more than 100 million individuals have been diagnosed with covid - 19 worldwide ; almost 30 million cases have been recorded in europe. more than 2 million people have died because of it, about one third of them in europe. the pandemic, combined with the containment measures introduced to curb the spread of the virus, plunged the world economy into one of the deepest recessions in recent history. in 2020, despite a short spell of recovery during the summer, world gdp declined by about 3. 5 per cent, the largest contraction since wwii. economic losses in the euro area and the uk have been particularly severe. fiscal and monetary authorities responded swiftly with massive expansionary interventions. the measures were aimed at strengthening the healthcare systems, at supporting firms ’ and households, and at preserving orderly monetary and financial conditions. the short - term objective of mitigating the immediate consequences of the pandemic was achieved, preventing the drying - up of liquidity, avoiding an immediate credit crunch that could have led to a large wave of defaults, and taming deflationary pressures that would have scarred the economic fabric of our economies and generated financial instability. 3. according to the latest projections released by the imf, global economic activity will surpass pre - pandemic levels by the end of 2021, with world gdp growing by 5. 5 per cent. the forecast has been revised positively, in light of expectations that vaccines would remove current restrictions in the second half of the year. however, projections are heterogeneous across world regions, owing to the differences in the access to healthcare, the effectiveness of relief measures, the exposure to cross - country spillovers, and structural