mint came to an end on 1 july 1941, when its pretoria branch became the south african mint. today, the south african mint belongs to the south african reserve bank, and is minting coins of a world standard. 3. the future : electronic money the world, including south africa, is now moving into the future with the gradual introduction of electronic money. it is still an interesting question to what extent the introduction of e - money will indeed have an impact on the use of coins and bank notes. there are big differences in the payments systems of different countries, and in the habits of people using different means of payment. in south africa, for example, the total amount of bank notes and coin in circulation is less than 15 per cent of total demand, or transferable deposits, compared with most of the countries in eastern europe ( former union of socialist soviet republics ), where it exceeds 100 per cent of the short - term bank deposits, or greece, where it is equal to 104 per cent. in these latter countries, the introduction of e - money will most probably have a much bigger effect on the demand for coins and bank notes than in south africa. i believe the subject of electronic money will be discussed in more detail in one of the sessions of this conference today and tomorrow. it will also, of course, have important implications for central banks, and for monetary policy in the next century. as already said, money, and particularly the use of coins as money, goes much further back in history than central banks. most central banks in the world today were only established during the course of the present twentieth century. but central banks now have the responsibility to protect the value of money, including, of course, the value of coins and bank notes. to be able to fulfil this function, central banks must have some power to control the issue [UNK] of money, and must have some influence on the total amount of money in circulation in the economy. in countries where notes and coin form a substantial part of the total money supply, and where the central bank has the sole right to issue notes and coin, the task may seem to be easier. it is, however, also in these countries where it is often easier for governments to exploit the money - creating powers of the central bank, and where an excessive amount of money is often created to finance government expenditure. such policies, of course, invariably lead to higher inflation. in the more sophisticated economies, such as we have in south africa

“ a time to act. the outlook for monetary policy in the euro area. ” speech by klaas knot at the danske bank copenhagen, 30 august 2022 there is no time for tinkering. we must forcefully tackle the still growing problem of persistently high inflation, within the core of our mandate. let me recap the reasons behind this urgency. euro area headline inflation reached 8. 9 % yoy in july, the highest figure since the creation of the euro ( see figure 1 below ). 10. 5 8. 5 figure 1. hicp euro area ( percentage points contribution to hicp ) 6. 5 4. 5 2. 5 0. 5 - 1. 5 jan - 19 food jan - 20 neig jan - 21 energy services jan - 22 hicp core inflation in explaining high inflation, much attention has focused on energy and food price inflation, which have provided the largest contribution to headline inflation, and which are driven by negative supply shocks related to supply chain constraints and russia ’ s war in ukraine. but this is not the full story. positive demand shocks – related to the strong pick - up in demand following the relaxation of covid - 19 restrictions – have also been at play. to me, two main types of evidence point to an important role that demand shocks have played so far. first, for some time now, inflationary pressures have been increasingly broad - based. the contributions to headline inflation of non - energy industrial goods - and services inflation have steadily increased in recent months ( see figure 1 ). note that services, which are not directly affected by higher commodity prices and disrupted production chains, account for 42 % of the euro area hicp. moreover, measures of underlying inflation that we monitor closely to see through temporary shocks have been increasing further, and currently stand at or near their historical maximum ( see figures 2 and 3 ). most notably, core inflation is on the rise and reached 4 % in july. as a number of temporary measures introduced to fight high inflation, such as the german nine - euro public transport ticket, are set to expire, it is unrealistic to assume that core inflation has peaked. 10. 0 figure 2. measures of underlying inflation ( annual percentage changes ) 5. 0 0. 0 - 5. 0 hicp hicp excl energy and food hicp excl energy, food, travel - related services, clothing and footwear supercore figure 3. measures of underlying inflation ( annual percentage changes,