order to ensure access to finance. on the supply side, this concerns credit lines and instalment loans granted for an unspecified purpose. for both credit types, there is much less diversity, with interest rates being very uniform across different lenders and close to the permitted maximum. on the demand side, on the other hand, it seems that there is a negative correlation between being financially more vulnerable and having to pay higher interest rates. indeed, we saw that the main feature of households paying higher rates, was that they had less net wealth than other categories. furthermore, a substantial proportion of these high - rate loans are used to repay other consumer credits or to cover current expenditure. in general, consumers contracting this type of credit have significantly lower incomes and net wealth than consumers that borrow for other purposes. 2. 2 regulation & access to the consumer credit market in belgium as elsewhere in europe, national legislation on consumer credit must comply with the consumer credit directive, which aims to ensure transparent and efficient credit markets, while at the same time protecting consumers. it ’ s obvious that changes to the regulations may have an impact on access to the consumer credit market for certain categories of borrowers. this is especially true for those who are financially more vulnerable. accis conference hosted by the nbb – 14 june 2022 3. but we must be careful to ensure that changes do achieve the intended goal, because that is not necessarily the case. let ’ s take for example the maximum interest rate that can be applied according to the type of credit. while a rise in maximum interest rates offers lenders incentives to grant loans to consumers with a higher risk profile, it ’ s clear that this could also overburden borrowers. conversely, a reduction would normally enable households to borrow at more moderate rates. but if the reduction is too large, there is a potential danger that they could be denied access to credit if lenders consider that the lower rates no longer cover the risks. lowering maximum rates could also have a negative impact on the generation of interest income and consequently, on the lender ’ s general profitability. this is especially the case if consumer credit makes up a significant share of his business. a lender might consider that the lower maximum rates are no longer enough to generate an adequate profit margin, which could lead to a market situation where lenders cease to offer certain credit types. so, changing the regulations can be a good thing, but we must be aware of potential risks. that ’ s why it

are not ( yet ) of macroeconomic relevance. related to this, the fintech revolution blurs the traditional boundaries between the financial and the non - financial sector. when such things are becoming more relevant, monetary policy transmission can profoundly change and monitoring the traditional financial indicators can turn out to be inadequate. therefore, good data coverage of new trends in the financial sector is essential. fortunately, the eurosystem plays a proactive role here and i would like to give two examples where new data play a key role. 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches during the financial crisis, a eurosystem - wide effort was launched to exploit bank - level data underlying the money and credit aggregates that are monitored in the ecb's monetary analysis. that way, the governing council could assess in a fairly granular way the transmission of measures via the banking sector. the data also proved key for calibrating the details of the targeted loans we started giving to banks back in 2014. thanks to money market statistical reporting ( mmsr ), which i recognise is a huge statistical challenge, we also have a better view on the workings of euro area money markets. moreover, it enables the eurosystem to provide for a back - up risk - free benchmark rate should currently available private benchmark rates cease to be published. in this respect, it is very good to see how new economic realities are being reflected here : contrary to the current benchmarks, transactions with non - bank money market participants could be included in this new benchmark too. concrete application and conclusion the three challenges i raised today may not only imply extensive use of existing micro data but also require further efforts to exploit the new world of data opened up by digitalisation – the socalled big data. i do not intend to elaborate much on concrete applications and challenges that come with big data. these aspects will certainly be more deeply tackled later today, in the third session of this conference. that said, i think technology - driven data bring serious challenges from a practical point of view, above all because their granularity is multi - dimensional. as correctly stated by andrew ( andy ) haldane from the bank of england in a speech he gave earlier this year, it runs through their volume ( cross - section ), their velocity ( frequency ) and their variety. one needs efficient data analytics tools to use the data properly while being aware of their limitations in terms of privacy and confidentiality. to wrap up, the challenge in future