s task to maintain price stability. price stability is an important prerequisite for sustainable economic development. people and companies can focus on innovations and creating wellbeing, instead of wasting their energy protecting themselves against inflation. with regard to financial stability, the bank of finland ’ s task is to ensure the credibility and efficiency of the financial system and to participate in its development. the central bank is the bankers ’ bank. the services that the central bank provides are a platform for interaction between banks. the central bank and the financial supervisory authority also participate in setting common ground rules. the ultimate role of ground rules – and regulation in general – is to create for the interaction of the various economic actors a setting in which a stable financial system contributes to promoting growth and wellbeing. an important characteristic of a platform is that it brings different actors together to interact with each other. that ’ s why the bank of finland has convened the payments forum today, for the tenth time. its aim is to promote cooperation between finnish actors and the formation of a shared vision on the development of payments. digitalisation in the financial sector digitalisation also facilitates completely new kinds of operating practices in the financial sector. are we now at an inflection point where digitalisation will change much of, or even the whole, sector decisively? to assess this, it ’ s worth looking back in time. banks invested heavily in information and communications technology in the 1980s. in this, finnish banks were in the vanguard of development. internal processes were modernised and atms appeared everywhere. in the second half of the 1980s, deregulation gained momentum. capital imports were liberalised. bank lending increased sharply and the indebtedness of citizens and businesses grew. then the bubble burst and was followed by a banking crisis. among other things, it forced the bloated banking sector to increase its productivity rapidly. utilising the ict investments made under the protection of regulation, operations were rationalised, the branch network was pruned and productivity was increased. shortly after the banking crisis came the breakthrough of the internet. customers began to access online banking services from home. banks provided services in branches, via atms, by telephone and with online banking. finnish banks soon succeeded in persuading their customers to use online banking services, and as a result the number of bank branches in finland is now low by european standards. bis central bankers ’ speeches what are the effects of digitalisation today? the smartphone, open apis,

snb will continue to monitor developments on the mortgage and real estate markets closely, paying particular attention to the residential investment property segment as well as to risks emanating from mortgage lending. in parallel, it will continue to regularly reassess the need for an adjustment of the countercyclical capital buffer. ninth banknote series allow me to close with a few remarks about the new banknote series. this year, the snb issued two further denominations : the new 20 - franc note was released in may and the new 10franc note in october. so, half of the denominations in the new banknote series have now entered circulation. i am happy to report that things have been progressing well and the issuance of the new banknote series has been very smooth so far. to date, returns of eighthseries banknotes to the snb have also been in line with our expectations. as announced, the next denomination, the 200 - franc note, will be issued in autumn 2018. the 1000 - franc note and the 100 - franc note will follow in 2019. the snb will announce the precise issue dates well in advance. page 3 / 3