submitted to the bank of italy. of course this in no way means that machines will replace the'judges ', but we believe that it can improve the assistance given to the panel members in making decisions. let's see what comes out of the debate, also regarding the risks of potential errors or even biases in decisions that are partly automated. lastly, another very important topic is the connection between the work done by adr systems and the work assigned to the supervisory authorities for consumer protection. it will be interesting to understand and see how adr systems can help to strengthen the wealth of data available to the sectoral supervisory authorities when carrying out their supervisory functions. i think some useful ideas will emerge here that we can discuss together. we see the ombudsman ( together with the managing of customer complaints ) as a very important part of consumer protection, flanked by supervision ( in both its regulatory aspects and its interventions ), and by financial education : dialogue between these three different functions is fundamental. international debate can be useful in identifying good practices in this area too. 3 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches i hope the challenges that adr systems in the financial and insurance sectors will have to tackle will also be outlined during the upcoming debate and that we can take away some interesting ideas on the policies to be implemented. i am referring to the new aspects of customer protection to be safeguarded in relation to the development of new fintech operators and smart contracts, the relationship between individual and class actions, the regulation of an ecosystem that hosts different types of adr, the growth of cross - border complaints and the integration of the access channels of the various adr systems borrowing from some exemplary international experiences. it only remains for me to'formally'open the conference, and to greet and thank all the participants. the floor now goes to the general counsel of the bank of italy : marino perassi. thank you all 4 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches

upon the introduction of qqe. compared to the united states and europe, inflation expectation formation in japan is judged as being largely adaptive, meaning that the expectations are formed in accordance with developments in the observed inflation rate. against this background, reflecting a substantial fall in crude oil prices since summer 2014 and a slowdown in emerging economies from 2015 through 2016 accompanied by turbulence in the global financial markets, the observed inflation rate declined, dragging down inflation expectations as well. the bank aims to drastically convert the deflationary mindset entrenched among people and re - anchor inflation expectations at 2 percent, but this has met with difficulties. given that qqe is unprecedentedly powerful, due attention also has to be paid to side effects that could materialize going forward. if an excessive decline in and a flattening of the yield curve were to last for too long under powerful monetary easing, risks of a pullback in financial intermediation and of destabilizing the financial system through downward pressure on financial institutions ’ profits could not be ignored. if these risks were to materialize, the transmission mechanism of monetary easing would be hampered and it would become more difficult to achieve price stability and sustainable economic growth in a self - fulfilling manner. it was judged that the bank has to achieve the most appropriate interest rate level with a view to containing such side effects to the minimum. bearing these issues in mind, the bank introduced “ qqe with yield curve control ” last september. this new policy framework was established through a further evolution of qqe, consisting of mainly two components ( chart 7 ). the first is yield curve control, which was introduced with the aim of realizing the combination of the levels of interest rates that are deemed most appropriate for maintaining the momentum toward achieving the price stability target of 2 percent, while also considering the effects on the functioning of financial intermediation. under this framework, japan ’ s yield curve during this one year has been formed smoothly in a manner consistent with the guideline for market operations, in which the short - term policy interest rate is set at minus 0. 1 percent and the target level of the 10 - year jgb yields at around zero percent. the second component is an inflation - overshooting commitment, which aims at ensuring that inflation expectations will be anchored at 2 percent. this is a further powerful commitment by the bank ; namely, it is committing itself to expanding the monetary base until the year - on - year rate of increase in the observed