– with respect to global harmonisation. it would be fair to assume that the global financial crisis and its aftermath played a considerable role in that respect. in the wake of the crisis, we have witnessed a resolute international response led by the world ’ s twenty heavyweight economies. the international community has put on a truly remarkable display of determination. while the g20 was founded quite some time before the crisis, its members ’ resolve to take common action was unprecedented in the us city of pittsburgh in 2009 and at subsequent summits. key milestones were achieved in international banking regulation. and this will to reform continued until recently, when the new international minimum standards for banking regulation, also known as basel iii, were finalised. 1 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches the international response to the crisis was necessary to make the architecture of the global banking system both credible and acceptable to society at large. but let ’ s not get carried away by global thinking, and we should not fall into the trap of global harmonisation as a cure - all – by which i mean the idea that, if some global rules are good, more global rules would always be better. instead, we have to live with the fact that, in today ’ s world, international agreements are still made with national and regional interests in mind. and even though there are strong arguments in favour of harmonisation, we have to respect that, in some areas, there are also strong arguments against common approaches and reasons as to why countries should set their own distinct sets of rules. a key topic nowadays is that of nations striving for greater sovereignty. in europe, the most striking example of this was when the united kingdom decided in a national referendum in 2016 to withdraw from the european union. on both sides of the atlantic, too, we have also experienced it in the form of drawn - out negotiations for trade agreements. just think about the criticism levelled against ceta, the comprehensive canada - eu trade deal, and ttip, the corresponding us - eu project, which slowed these projects down or even brought them to a halt. proponents of greater national sovereignty have a point : sovereignty provides scope to deal with issues in a national way. a regulatory landscape that is aligned to national particularities requires, to some extent, that there are national instruments and policies on hand. fully harmonised rules take away that leeway. we can even observe this with respect to banking regulation. currently, global standards that are aimed at large and internationally active

frequent in sweden than in many other countries, the need for enhanced security features at the international level will make swedish card issuers follow the global trend. if we do not, we take the risk of becoming a secure haven, attracting large numbers of card fraudsters. whether sweden should have been even quicker to adopt the new technology is a matter for discussion. currently we are facing the transition from magnetic stripe cards to chip cards. the migration to the global emv standard ( emv = europay, mastercard & visa ) is on its way. the first pilot will start this spring ; the national roll out will follow in the autumn. it is not easy to forecast how long the technology migration will take. all cards have to be replaced with the new emv compatible chip and payment terminals need to be upgraded. this process may take some time. market players expect that the change of rules announced by visa and mastercard regarding the distribution of credit risks, to be implemented from january 2005, may considerably speed up the migration process ( currently card issuers bear full credit risk, but from that date, credit risk will fall on the party, card issuer or bank not implementing the emv technology ). i trust that the introduction of the emv cards will be thoroughly covered by the afternoon speakers, so i will leave the subject here. central bank involvement why should a central bank care about the card market? is the market not better handled by the private sector without public intervention? according to the law, the riksbank is to promote a safe and efficient payment system. like most central banks, the riksbank is heavily involved in large value payments, running and providing credit to the rix - system, where payments can be made in central bank money. here the central bank role is simple to explain. but why should we be involved in the small value payments handled in the card market? safety problems, although they may be important, are usually not systemic in nature. and in a well - functioning market, economic efficiency should be attained by the market itself, without public intervention. in my view, central bank involvement is appropriate only in the cases of market failure, coordination problems of some magnitude or the presence of obstacles outside the market itself. usually, they relate to efficiency rather than safety. typically, we would ask questions such as 1. are there legal and regulatory impediments to market development and innovation? 2. are market conditions competitive? 3. are security and operating standards and