monetary policy decisions and briefly discussing where our monetary policy might go from here. that said, i wouldn't be able to fully put things in context without briefly describing the current economic situation and inflation developments. let me start there. 2 economic developments 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches the energy crisis put a considerable strain on the german economy in the winter halfyear. while it was possible to significantly mitigate the effects of the energy crisis last year, the german economy was still in a " technical " recession around the turn of the year. technical recession is the term used when real gross domestic product declines in two consecutive quarters. in this setting, high inflation weighed on private consumption, in particular. from the spring onwards, the german economy is likely to have returned to an expansionary, albeit moderate, path, with the strong wage increases expected to have stabilised consumption spending despite the high inflation. however, according to the bundesbank's june projections, real gross domestic product in germany is set to contract by 0. 3 % on average in 2023. 2 the weak start to the year is still making itself felt here. for next year, our economic experts expect growth of 1. 2 %. 3 inflation looking at prices, in particular, shows just how extraordinary economic developments were last year. according to the national consumer price index, consumer prices in germany rose by an average of 6. 9 % in 2022 – the strongest increase since 1974. and measured by the harmonised index of consumer prices ( hicp ), that figure was even as high as 8. 7 %. in the euro area as a whole, the hicp increased by 8. 4 %, the highest rate since the introduction of the euro. to the general public, the current wave of inflation is mainly associated with russia's attack on ukraine. the geopolitical conflict did, in fact, lead to a dramatic rise in energy prices over a year ago. but inflation had already picked up earlier, in the second half of 2021. what made that happen? back then, the global economy was recovering unexpectedly quickly from the slump caused by the pandemic. as a result, energy prices rose sharply. moreover, the pandemic led to excess demand for certain consumer goods. industry was no longer able to keep up with enough supply. the outcome was supply bottlenecks in a number of sectors – partly also due to pandemic - related closures. this further intensified the upward pressure

michele bullock : financial technology and payments regulation keynote speech by ms michele bullock, assistant governor ( financial system ) of the reserve bank of australia, at the 5th bund summit on fintech, shanghai, 8 july 2018. * * * my thanks to chay fisher, jiamin lim, sean langcake and stephanie bolt who carried out the work on which this speech is based. thank you to the shanghai finance institute for the invitation to speak at this summit. the theme of the summit – new finance, new technology, new trends – really captures the excitement of the payments industry at the moment. but it is also a challenging time for regulators who want to encourage innovation but at the same time ensure that payment systems remain safe for users and that there is a level regulatory playing field. today i am going to talk about some of those challenges and how we are thinking about them at the reserve bank of australia. i will start by briefly setting out the australian regulatory framework for payments before talking about the key forces shaping payments. i will then talk about some of the potential implications for retail payments and for regulators. payments regulation in australia like in china, the primary regulator of the payments system in australia is the central bank – the reserve bank of australia. the reserve bank ’ s payments system policy is determined by the payments system board ( psb ), which is chaired by the governor of the reserve bank and includes a number of external members. the key duties of the psb with respect to the payments system are to ensure that the powers of the bank are exercised in a way that best contribute to controlling risk in the financial system, promoting efficiency of the payments system and promoting competition in the market for payment services consistent with overall stability of the financial system. the reserve bank has strong powers to regulate payments systems and in some cases it does. for example, certain competition and efficiency issues associated with credit card systems could not be addressed by participants so the bank introduced regulation that required changes to certain practices in these schemes. but the bank ’ s preferred approach is to identify areas where competition, efficiency or safety could be enhanced and then encourage industry to address those issues. a good example of this was the development of the new payments platform ( npp ). the npp is an open access infrastructure for fast payments in australia. it went live earlier this year and is gradually ramping up. it allows users of the payments system to send real - time payments with simple addressing 24 / 7. it also allows more complete information to