range of institutions during a longer trading window. the asx has also been consulting market participants on a new set of trading guidelines for bbsw, and this process has the strong support of the cfr. the new arrangements will not only anchor bbsw to a larger set of transactions, but will improve the infrastructure in the bank bill market, encouraging more electronic trading and straight - through processing of transactions. the critical difference between bbsw and libor is that there enough transactions in the local bank bill market each day relative to the size of our financial system to calculate a robust benchmark. are for the new bbsw methodology to be implemented successfully, the institutions that participate in the bank bill market will need to start trading bills at outright yields rather than the current practice of agreeing to the transaction at the yet - to - be - determined bbsw rate. this change of behaviour needs to occur at the banks that issue the bank bills, as well as those that buy them including the investment funds and state treasury corporations. the rba is also playing its part. market http : / / www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2017 / sp - dg - 2017 - 09 - 08. html 2 / 5 08 / 09 / 2017 interest rate benchmarks | speeches | rba participants have asked us to move our open market operations to an earlier time to support liquidity in the bank bill market during the trading window, and we have agreed to do this. while we all have to make some changes to systems and practices to support the new methodology, the investment in a more robust bbsw will be well worth it. the alternative of rewriting a very large number of contracts and re - engineering systems should bbsw cease to exist would be considerably more painful. the new regulatory framework for financial benchmarks that the government is in the process of introducing should provide market participants with more certainty. treasury recently completed a consultation on draft legislation that sets out how financial benchmarks will be regulated, and the bill has just been introduced into parliament. [ 4 ] in addition, asic recently released more detail about how the regulatory regime would be implemented. [ 5 ] this should help to address the uncertainty that financial institutions participating in the bbsw rate setting process have been facing. it should also support the continued use of bbsw in the european union, where new regulations will soon come into force that require benchmarks used in the eu to be subject to a robust regulatory framework. risk - free rates as alternative

##s or have an intention to issue them in the medium term1. most of the activities have been limited to conceptual research or initial proof - of - concept experiments. - - with regard to the bank of lithuania, we are generally fond of financial innovation. for instance, we even have plans to open a new generation technological sandbox for testing blockchain solutions ( called lbchain ). we therefore do not reject the potential that cbdcs carry. yet at this point we remain cautious. i also have to stress that the bank of lithuania is part of the eurosystem. for us, any significant step in the field of cbdcs would require action at the ecb level. for now, this seems like quite a distant prospect. in any case, our future positions in this domain will be based on a rigorous cost - benefit analysis. we will take into account the possible alternatives. for instance, the bank of lithuania already provides an effective payments infrastructure titled centrolink. the system supports 24 / 7 instant payments and is accessible for all payment service operators, including fintech companies. by creating a level playing field for different types of market players, we aim to encourage competition. this creates the necessary conditions for the emergence of new and efficient private retail payment products. in some sense, such developments limit the potential added - value of the retail cbdc. therefore, assessing the balance between risks and benefits from the perspective of generally conservative central banks, the wholesale cbdc seems like a more viable option going forward. however, we feel the need to acquire a better theoretical understanding of the way any sort of cbdc would function, and learn from practical pilot experiments. notably, research and monitoring carried out by international organizations, such as the imf or standard - setting bodies, could play an important part in finding an optimal future design. 1 as shown by the survey conducted by the committee on payments and market infrastructures ( cpmi ) last year. 4 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches