we now have the mir card that is continuing to develop and the national financial messaging system which is an analogue of sw ift we created after 2014. this system currently services over 20 % of financial messages inside the country and is capable of servicing the entire domestic traffic if needs be. the faster payments system is advancing. as i have said earlier, it played a critical role last 4 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches year ensuring p2p money transfers — to family members, friends and acquaintances : when people needed to make a money transfer, they had the opportunity to make it cheaply and instantaneously. today, the faster payments system is advancing to the next level enabling not only p2p money transfers, but also payments for goods and services. as was announced by president putin, all related costs for small businesses will be compensated from the budget until the end of the year. this will make it easier for small businesses to connect to this system. it is essential that all systemically important banks must connect to the system by 1 july. as of the current moment, 10 of the 12 systemically important banks have connected to the fps. we hope that the remaining ones will be compliant with the deadline. we reviewed these issues related to the development of the national payment infrastructure during the panel discussion, and my colleagues answered all the questions and spoke on our plans. this is really a crucial area. winding up, i would like to say that we will continue our efforts to ensure price and financial stability, maintain the resilience of the financial sector, and enhance financial inclusion. despite the pandemic, this topic also remained relevant for us since people even in small localities should have access to basic services. we have achieved significant progress in each of these areas. today, i would like to thank the seventh state duma for the really enormous contribution to the advancement of financial laws. you have adopted many essential laws. i would like to mention a few very complicated major legislative changes enabling us to develop a modern financial sector meeting the needs of russian people and companies. in 2017, the state duma approved the law on banks ’ financial resolution. without this law, it would have been impossible to avoid losses for households and businesses that kept their money with several very large but, unfortunately, hopelessly impaired banks. i would like to reiterate that when we allocated funds for their resolution, this was not to provide financial aid to the banks ’ owners and management, but rather to protect the funds

average ) and by close to 110 % in greece ( i. e. three times the euro area average ). public spending growth has systematically exceeded nominal gdp growth also in portugal ( about double the average for the area ). fiscal discipline had been clearly insufficient. even when the headline fiscal deficit was suggesting a healthy situation until around 2008, that was misleading as gdp was above potential and strong tax revenues resulting from housing booms were not sustainable. during the 2008 – 09 crisis, the sharp drop in domestic demand caused a significant fall in revenues, which in some previously booming countries were based on very cyclically sensitive taxes, such as corporate taxes, stamp duties and capital gains taxes. at the same time, government spending was increased by crisis - related measures. moreover, rescue operations for banks, especially in ireland, strongly contributed to a deterioration of public finances, while bank guarantees increased the contingent liabilities of euro area governments. [ slide 2 ] the mathematics of all these developments is very simple. by mid - 2010 a number of euro area countries, even some that did not see such an accumulation of imbalances, began to be affected by an unprecedented sovereign debt crisis ; financial markets were starting to perceive debt levels as unsustainable. from this point on, governments under close scrutiny by those markets had to take action to regain their confidence. they were not left to their own devices. a fully - fledged eu and imf financing package – known formally as the economic adjustment programmes – came to the aid of greece, ireland and portugal between 2010 and 2012. these programmes involved far - reaching economic and financial policy adjustments, including in the area of structural reforms. spain, meanwhile, launched a financial sector adjustment programme supported by its european partners. moreover, a permanent solidarity framework – the european stability mechanism – is now in place. it can provide financial assistance to member states in difficulty, thereby reducing threats to financial stability in the euro area. and from an early stage onwards, the eurosystem provided very substantial liquidity support to the banking sector, which had been severely affected by the seizing - up of the interbank market. the ecb ’ s non - standard measures played a critical role in preventing a deflationary scenario, especially as the sovereign debt crisis escalated from mid - 2010 onwards. for bis central bankers ’ speeches instance, it provided banks with all the liquidity they were seeking by adopting fixed rate tender procedures with full allotment, against an expanded list of eligible collateral, and for extended