the schedule in their debt contracts. despite the lowest interest rates that any current borrower has ever seen, the pace of lending to households remains moderate. this is not a credit crunch – lenders are willing to lend and competition to do so is strong. indeed, the prudential supervisor has been minded recently to issue some timely warnings about the need to maintain sound lending standards. rather, the story is that households are being more prudent about debt and are holding more liquid assets. one measure of this is the size of “ offset account ” balances – bank deposits held to offset mortgage debt. these now amount to about $ 90 billion. when the housing credit data are adjusted for the increase in offset account balances, the rate of growth over the past year is put at about 6 per cent, as opposed to over 7 per cent as published. this may mean that the effect of easy monetary policy is to be somewhat lessened, at least for a time. taking a medium - term perspective, though, the general strengthening of the balance sheet among many formerly more - indebted households has to be seen as a good thing. in the interim, the somewhat more restrained attitude to debt and spending by households, combined with a similar attitude by the government sector, has meant that there has not been quite enough domestic demand to achieve full employment, in the face of the fall in business investment. that is why we have felt that, on balance, a somewhat lower exchange rate was likely to be a part of the necessary adjustment. that adjustment seems to be occurring, with relatively little disruption, and is having an expansionary effect. growth in services trade for example is picking up. the “ net export contribution ” of services trade over the past year, of around ½ percentage point of gdp, is about the same as the contribution from iron ore exports over that period. it is worth noting that business conditions as measured in surveys have tended to improve overall, outside the mining sector, over the past year or so. at the same time, the state of the labour market, while still somewhat subdued, appears to be better than we had expected three or six months ago. employment growth has picked up noticeably, and hours worked have also increased. the rate of unemployment is unchanged from a year ago, whereas we had been thinking it might be a little higher than this by now, since growth in real gdp has been, according to the available statistics, below trend. candidate explanations for this better - than

page 2 sur 3 economic agents. it is now a public good, and taken for granted at least in advanced economies. we, central bankers, have mixed feelings towards crypto - assets : on the one hand, they bring innovation and meet some expectations, especially in emerging economies ; on the other hand, they carry significant potential risks, related to money laundering, breach of data privacy and high volatility among others. although our mandates fully enshrine stability, resisting innovation is not in our dna, on the contrary. financial stability without innovation would mean conservatism ; innovation without financial stability would feed distrust, and hence be unsustainable. notwithstanding our sometimes old - fashioned image, we have been at the forefront of financial innovation for decades. our achievements however often remain unknown to the public : our state - of - the art settlement systems are aimed at banks, not end - users. how can we find our rightful place in this emerging dlt world? benign neglect, or on the contrary prohibition, are no longer options. while keeping our eyes and minds open, we have to at once regulate and innovate. first, regulate and supervise all players that issue, value, deal, settle, offer custody and related services regarding these new assets. the initial bitcoin ideology of a full disintermediation – or even disembodiment – turned out unsuited to real life : most users do not directly intervene on the blockchain, they use platforms and new intermediaries. “ decentralised finance ” could be a misnomer while leading to concentration of some private players that are not regulated for the time being. the sound supervisory principle “ same activity, same risks, same rules ” should apply and be expressed as a “ square of guarantees ” : ( 1 ) equal security ; ( 2 ) equal compliance ; ( 3 ) equal responsibility ; and ( 4 ) equal accessibility. regulation has to be built consistently across jurisdictions, and is especially important as links between the real world and the crypto world are growing stronger. against this backdrop, and in accordance with the g20 agenda that was initiated two years ago, most jurisdictions are considering legislative changes to deal with crypto - assets. for instance, the european union must adopt shortly a regulation called markets in crypto - assets page 3 sur 3 ( mica ). it is essential that we all ensure that there is a real - time and ambitious approach across the globe. second, central banks