maja kadievska - vojnovik : drivers of european payment integration - innovations and cooperation ( opening speech ) speech by mrs maja kadievska – vojnovic, vice governor of the national bank of the republic of macedonia at the opening of the 10th jubilee edition of the nbrm's conference on payments and market infrastructures : drivers of european payment integration - innovations and cooperation, ohrid, 5 - 7 july 2017. * * * ladies and gentlemen, dear guests from home and abroad, it is a great pleasure to wish you very warm welcome to the annual conference on payments and market infrastructures. this year marks the 10th anniversary of the conference and we are very proud to host it here in ohrid in front of a group of eminent speakers and distinguished audience. let me first thank you all for coming as you are the ones who bring the success to the conference. i hope you find the next couple of days interesting, informative and productive and most of all enjoyable as we celebrate the occasion. i would like to take this opportunity and extend my sincerest gratitude and appreciation to de nederlandsche bank and banco de portugal, as institutions with whom we maintain close and fruitful collaboration on many fronts, and particularly with respect to this conference. your continued support and cooperation is highly appreciated and i believe it will only grow stronger in the future to come. ladies and gentlemen, we named this 10th jubilee conference – drivers of european payment integration – innovations and cooperation. innovations indeed move the world with financial technology, transforming the financial services industry as we know it – moving it towards the digital arena. in such an environment, building and maintaining close cooperation becomes essential for sustaining financial stability and protecting consumers from security threats. the conference will cover various topics related to the latest developments at global, european and national level. the emergence of fintech – financial technology marked the global developments in recent years by attracting financial institutions attention to its implementation for improving the present financial products and new products development. on the other hand, fintech companies started offering their own financial services, thus entering into competition against banks. moreover, digital technologies pose challenges to financial institutions, including the central banks, in the context of digital banking and digital transformations. implementation of distributed ledger technology, particularly blockchain, could cause disruption to financial market infrastructures and furthermore, to worldwide financial system. theoretically, it could facilitate cross - border payments, improve the efficiency of back - office operations, eliminate the need of data

, depending not only on the economic environment, but also on the public interest and trends in the communication and information networks and media, which, due to the development of technology and digitization, are changing, advancing and improving on a daily basis. the constant strengthening of transparency, that is, the promotion and development of communication with the public, including media, is a challenge for the national bank of the republic of macedonia. we work diligently to respond to the challenge, while paying attention to the two points of communication – immediate communication with the public and communication with the media. we do our best to follow the best practices of the european central banking union, which is largely confirmed with the assessments of our transparency. in doing so, we not only struggle to increase intensity, but also quality of our communication. here i would mention the practice of constantly improving the quality of information and analyses we publish, improving the methodological explanations for the statistics that we publish, timely informing of all novelties in statistical surveys, improving the structure of our website, concurrent publishing of statistics and statistical press releases for their explanation, providing international comparability of our data through continuous implementation of international standards. in this regard, we are in the final stage of creating an analytical tool for easier access and search of statistics by all external users. we hope that our commitment is noticeable for you as media representatives, who analyze our work on a daily basis, by following the press releases, data and positions that arise from the central banking operations in the country. for us, you, the journalists, are one of the main conveyors of monetary policy messages to the public. not as our spokespersons, but as individuals and professionals respected by the public, who daily follow our work, which is very often presented in tables, graphs, reviews and data series that almost always require focused reading and analysis before being commented. the same focus is required for our reports, where even footnotes contain important data that 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches ensure analytical and studious rather than only informative reporting. accurately and precisely communicated or analyzed data is crucial for timely and professional information to the public. unfortunately, even unintentionally inaccurate or incomplete communication or analysis of central bank data and views, especially in times when the information / news are transmitted at the speed of light, can create undesired environment for the economy, especially if it creates an unreasonable panic among the public. comprehensive and thorough communication requires understanding of many methodological aspects