##bility in sectors whose business model may be profoundly affected by the pandemic. in contrast, the announced size of public guarantees and loans is larger in economies hit less hard by the pandemic. as liquidity support, these measures increase ﬁrm indebtedness. the higher the corporate debt levels were prior to the pandemic, the more pronounced the uptake of moratoria has been. in countries with lower corporate debt levels, in contrast, public loans and guarantees have been used to a greater extent. figure 5 a priori, these patterns ensure that already high debt levels do not increase further and possibly become unsustainable through additional borrowing. however, as long as moratoria are in place and debt servicing is suspended, assessing the underlying strength of the borrower is [UNK]. overall, the esrb report ﬁnds that corporate debt sustainability is reﬂected in the design and use of ﬁscal measures. countries which are more exposed to vulnerable sectors offer direct grants, which support ﬁrm ’ s solvency, relatively more than public loans and guarantees, which provide liquidity. also, countries with high initial corporate debt levels tend, on average, to use moratoria to a relatively large extent. this limits the increase in corporate leverage. 3 monitoring and addressing the sustainability of corporate debt will be crucial policy responses to the pandemic have so far contained ﬁnancial stability risks and prevented a liquidity crisis which could have turned into a solvency crisis. fiscal measures, in particular, have supported corporate debt sustainability and have, indirectly, shielded banks from the effects of the pandemic. at the same time, public and private sector debt has increased. future debt sustainability thus hinges on the evolution of future economic activity and interest rates. looking ahead, addressing emerging solvency issues and dealing with corporate distress as well as rising non - performing loans will be important. the magnitude of potential solvency problems and the structural change that is needed remain highly uncertain, also due to the continued crisis - related support. elevated debt levels for households and ﬁrms might become unsustainable if the economic crisis lasts longer than expected. this could lead to an accumulation of losses in the ﬁnancial sector. maintaining and addressing the sustainability of corporate debt will be of utmost importance. this suggests a number of policy priorities : targeting : as the immediate economic pain from the crisis recedes, support measures should become more targeted to sectors and ﬁrms that still require them

more expensive and take longer than a transfer from brussels to antwerp. it was not without reason that the eu commission and the european central bank ( ecb ), independently of each other, have once again stressed the need for improvements. as far as i can see, there has already been distinct progress in the time it takes for a transfer between euro countries. but little has happened in terms of pricing. what are affected members of the public to think if - as in a recent case - they have to pay a fee of eur25 for a transfer of eur75 from germany to austria? however, i personally obtained some weeks ago the double amount of cash in austria by drawing on my domestic account - which, of course, also involved a non - cash transaction - and this “ only ” cost eur4 owing to the high degree of standardisation. the free negotiation of prices between the customer and the bank certainly represents one of the key areas of free competition, but if the result is out of proportion to the service provided, then - as past experience has shown - new operators or procedures tend to emerge - in europe possibly in the form of cross - border cash transports or the increasing use of credit cards - which is unlikely to be in the interest of either the banking industry or of consumers. there are important reasons for adjusting the prices of cross - border transfers very rapidly to those of the efficient domestic procedures. what is required in this connection is to work towards further improvements on the technical side. standardisation the major importance of standardisation in europe has therefore, in my view, been rightly highlighted in the report published by the ecb in september of this year. a europe - wide linking of the national payment systems has not yet been reached. so far, national standards are only compatible for the provision of cash through automatic teller machines using the ec - card, but not for credit transfers. owing to the differing standards, foreign payments are mostly still transferred in systems which are separate from domestic payment systems and are levied with special charges, in some cases without the consent of the originator. a complete conversion towards unseparated processing in each domestic payment system is not always possible and also quite expensive owing to the many possible combinations. a harmonisation in terms of cost, however, requires a very close europe - wide cooperation. here, the solution is to be found not so much in the development of new ( additional ) standards as in the general implementation and application of standards such as those