for clearing payment transactions in nok, otherwise we will lose the advantages we have today. an efficient and secure common infrastructure must still be a main feature of the norwegian payment system, whichever solution the industry ultimately chooses. looking further ahead, a number of broad issues need to be addressed. norges bank will initiate a project to assess the payment and settlement system of tomorrow as a whole. the aim is to make active and constructive contributions to an efficient and secure payment system, today and in the future. we will seek long - term solutions to several of the issues mentioned above, in particular the following two key questions : should we continue to have a completely domestic payment infrastructure in norway, or could it become more international? how would we then solve issues related to national security? how should the infrastructure be changed to facilitate the services needed by end - users in the future? should payments still be cleared before they reach the central bank, or is gross settlement the best option? the first phase of the project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2019. cyber security as the payment system is centralised and ict - dependent, it is vulnerable to cyber attacks. if an attack were to succeed, payments could come to a halt and financial losses could occur. an attack could also result in unauthorised access to or manipulation of sensitive information. the system ’ s vulnerability can be reduced in a number of ways, for example through wellestablished cooperation within the financial industry and between the industry and the authorities, sound security procedures and recovery capabilities. system owners are responsible for the resilience of their own systems. norges bank monitors the systems under its supervision to ensure that satisfactory defence mechanisms are in place. a number of payment system participants have outsourced the operation of their systems to a few ict service providers. this is a source of concentration risk. the failure of key service providers could bring important parts of the payment system to a halt. the problems at evry on 6 october 2017 affected approximately 40 banks in norway, as well as norway post and telenor. this incident illustrates the potential broad repercussions of the failure of a key ict service provider. such concentration risk is difficult for individual system owners to address alone. the entire infrastructure served by the provider is exposed to risk, not merely the individual system. ict service providers are not subject to the same regulation and supervision as licensed banking and payment system participants. it is norges bank ’ s view that the authorities should explore how 3

behind the scenes in limited and systematic ways to promote price stability and long - term growth. since the onset of the financial crisis, central banks have become highly interventionist in their efforts to manipulate asset prices and financial markets in general as they attempt to fine - tune economic outcomes. this approach has continued well past the end of the financial crisis. while the motivations may be noble, we have created an environment in which “ it is all about the fed. ” market participants focus entirely too much on how the central bank may tweak its policy, and central bankers have become too sensitive and desirous of managing prices in the financial world. i do not see this as a healthy symbiotic relationship for the long term. if financial market participants believe that their success depends primarily on the next decisions of monetary policymakers rather than on economic fundamentals, our capital markets will not deliver the economic benefits they are capable of providing. and if central banks do not limit their interventionist strategies and focus on returning to more normal policymaking aimed at promoting price stability and long - term growth, then they will simply encourage the financial markets to ignore fundamentals and to focus instead on the next actions of the central bank. i hope we can find a way to make monetary policy decision - making less interventionist, less discretionary, and more systematic. i believe our longer - term economic health will be the beneficiary. bis central bankers ’ speeches