my view, the cmu project is an important step forward to reach the goal of correcting some structural deficiencies of the eu capital markets in terms of their relative underdevelopment and fragmentation. cmu action plan was launched in 2015 by the european commission by setting out a list of over 30 actions and related measures to establish the building blocks of an integrated capital market in the european union by 2019. so far the implementation of these measures has been slow. in any event, in recent years the role of european capital markets as a source of funding for firms has increased. for example, the ratio of financing through fixed - income securities to total debt financing has grown from 8 % in 2007 to 12 % in 2017. a similar trend has also been observed in other advanced economies including the united states. understanding the driving forces of this trend is important in order to assess its main implications. some factors are possibly of a transitory nature. among these factors are the post - crisis monetary policies and their implementation. in particular, the introduction in mid2016 of the corporate sector purchase programme ( cspp ) as part of the ecb asset purchase programme, has contributed to lower the cost of firms ’ financing through the issuance of fixed - income securities relative to the cost of bank funding, thus encouraging see bentolila, s., jansen, m., and jimenez, g. ( 2017 ) " when credit dries up : job losses in the great recession ", journal of the european economic association, 16, 650 – 695, and martinez - pages, j. ( 2014 ) “ impact of restructuring plans on lending to non - financial corporations ” economic bulletin banco de espana, july – august 2014. see special feature a “ financial integration and risk sharing in a monetary union ”, in financial integration in europe, ecb, april 2016 and box 1 “ what could enhance private financial risk sharing in the euro area? ” in financial integration in europe, ecb, may 2018. see also asdrubali, p., sorensen, b. and yosha, o., ( 1996 ) “ channels of interstate risk sharing : united states 1963 - 1990 ”, quarterly journal of economics, 111, 1081 - 1110 ; athanasoulis, s. and van wincoop, e. ( 2001 ) “ risk sharing within the united states : what do financial markets and fiscal federalism accomplish? ”, review of economics and statistics, 83, 68

about whether they should make these payments by cheque in the days immediately following the rollover to the year 2000 as part of their contingency planning. i hope these organizations carefully consider all of the implications of such a step before making a final decision in this regard. we have a high degree of confidence in the ability of the federal reserve and the banking industry to continue to process electronic payments during this period. the drawbacks to the payment recipients of this change to business - as - usual practices may well outweigh any perceived benefits. conclusion i believe that the financial services industry has made great progress in addressing year 2000 issues. during this next year you will not only need to do your best to continue to repair and test your own systems, but will also need to evaluate the risk of potential failures and the effect of these failures on your business. further, you will need to test fallback procedures or work - around processes that mitigate the effect of such failures on your ability to continue to conduct business. finally, we must continue to be a reliable source of accurate and sound information to maintain the public ’ s trust. i do not doubt that we can collectively rise to these challenges.