##bu board last met to discuss monetary policy. 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches on the one hand, increases in social payments, as well as the monetization of utility subsidies are planned for the coming months. although the effects of these individual factors are insignificant, their combined impact on inflation expectations could be substantial, on the back of greater uncertainty arising from presidential and parliamentary elections. on the other hand, a more noticeable strengthening in the hryvnia exchange rate than is envisaged in the current forecast, is helping curb inflation. that said, the risks to inflation decreasing mentioned by the nbu in its january macroeconomic forecast continue to persist. what will the nbu ’ s monetary policy stance be in future? after balancing the need to bring inflation back to its target against the risks that could prevent inflation from decreasing, the nbu board has decided to leave the key policy rate unchanged, at 18. 0 % per annum. although leaving the key policy rate unchanged, the nbu board said that it could cut it in the future. how soon the nbu will adopt an easing cycle will depend on how steadily risks of inflation decrease and inflation expectations improve. looking ahead, any changes to the key policy rate will be based on the nbu ’ s updated macroeconomic forecast that will be published in april. a summary of the discussion by monetary policy committee members that preceded this decision will be published on 25 march 2019. the next meeting of the nbu board on monetary policy issues will be held on 25 april 2019. thank you for your time! 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches

has been an active participant in such projects, helping to co - create solutions together with the industry. 3 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches project ubin : using dlt for inter - bank payments project ubin is a good example of such collaboration as well as challenging the status quo. the problem statement is this : in a real - time gross settlement payment system, transactions typically go through a single trusted party, often the central bank. the challenge mas posed itself was : can we create a more efficient inter - bank payment and settlement system without mas acting as the trusted party? this began project ubin – a collaborative effort among mas, the singapore exchange, ten banks, six technology companies, and six academic institutions. over the course of the project, more than 150 people were trained in dlt. phase 1 of project ubin successfully demonstrated that banks are able to transact with one another on an ethereum - based prototype without going through the mas. mas issued a digital representation of the singapore dollar – a central bank digital currency – and placed it on the distributed ledger for domestic inter - bank settlement. phase 2 of project ubin – just recently concluded – successfully produced three software models that achieved decentralised netting of payments in a manner that preserved transactional privacy. the next step in project ubin is to extend the application to cross - border payment and settlement. cross - border payments today rely on a correspondent banking network. banks hold balances with one another and settlement occurs through the adjustment of these relative balances. there is counterparty risk, liquidity is split, and reconciliation is a major pain point. in cases where multiple correspondent banks are involved, transactions may take days and at high cost to customers. we are therefore exploring how project ubin can be linked up with other central bank dlt projects to facilitate cross - border payments. if successful, it will help bring about significant improvements in efficiency, cost, speed, and risk management. the grand vision is a dlt - based settlement system that paves the way for 24 / 7 operations and allows cross - border transactions to be settled instantly. collaboration between singapore and andhra pradesh through dlt dlt is a natural platform for collaboration. with the strong trade flows between singapore and india, there are good opportunities for fintechs and financial institutions in singapore and andhra pradesh to collaborate. we can explore how our customs and trade platforms can be linked up to facilitate exchange of trade documents and advance the digitalisation of trade. our banks