however, might be conflicting in some points of the cycle. for instance, during downturns macro - prudential policy interventions would imply the loosening of equity buffers, while a purely micro - prudential perspective may aim to preserve or even tighten capital requirements. how to best coordinate the two approaches is a matter which is still unresolved. in the european union this difficulty combines with the institutional framework, which is characterised by different layers of central and domestic authorities. also, most importantly, the interaction of macro - prudential policy with monetary policy, both in its conventional and unconventional forms, provides ample possibilities for future research. in the medium run they reinforce each other. monetary policy aims at maintaining price stability, which is a pre - condition for a sustained and balanced growth. at the same time, financial stability cannot easily be achieved in a persistently depressed economy. in the short run things are however a bit more controversial. on the one hand, macro - prudential policy can mitigate unintended consequences of monetary policy, such as excessive risk taking in times of very low interest rates. on the other hand, macro - prudential policy can interfere with the transmission of monetary policy to economic activity through its tightening or loosening effects on credit conditions. research can provide insights on the extent to which macro - prudential authorities should internalise the macroeconomic consequences of their decisions, and on how to smooth short - run conflicts between monetary and macro - prudential policies ( as well as those of the latter with other policies and measures in fields such as those of taxation and environmental protection ). dramatic developments in financial technology ( fintech ) are creating new services, enlarging the pool of potential competitors of traditional intermediaries, and setting new challenges for macro - prudential authorities. there are many issues that could be fruitfully explored in this second area of interest. perhaps this is where possible conflicts may arise between traditional banking institutions and new institutions operating in the shadow banking system. there might also be complementarities, the more so if banks learn how to take advantage of instruments such as crowd - funding and / or lending based on major advances provided by technology, for instance the use of big data, the diffusion of machine learning or the recourse to distributed ledgers. a field that is very much under investigation at a policy level is that of the so - called cryptoassets, as the best - known of which being bitcoin

the advantages of a single jurisdiction over all ecb acts and measures : that of the court of justice of the european union. the bank of italy is fully aware of the growing role of the case law of the court in the process of building the banking union : so much so that we have set up a periodical publication, in our legal research series ( quaderni di ricerca giuridica ), devoted specifically to reporting and providing comments on these judicial developments. the court of justice – with its rulings – has first and foremost supported the view of the ssm as a centralised eu mechanism, in which the ecb is acknowledged as the holder of supervisory powers over all the banks in the ssm ( regardless of their significant or less - significant classification ). meanwhile, the court has also affirmed its exclusive jurisdiction over the'endo - procedural'or'preparatory'acts adopted by the ncas, within the perimeter of the common procedures envisaged by the ssm regulation. it is important that the eu judge has also provided guidance on the application of national law by the ecb, by making it clear that the ecb – when required to apply national law in transposing directives – must first look to the interpretation provided by the domestic courts. this brings me back to the beginning of these brief opening remarks. the urgency with which the ssm was established has led, inter alia, to the exercising of supervisory powers on all credit institutions that operate in the euro area, in compliance with prudential banking rules that were and continue to be only partially uniform at eu level. this asymmetry is clearly still a source of imbalance. ten years after the enactment of the founding regulation of the ssm, it is now high time to work towards a much more advanced degree of harmonisation of those rules. from this point of view, it would certainly be desirable to launch a systematic and comprehensive assessment at eu level of the extent to which the current dispersive banking rule directives can be merged into a single comprehensive piece of legislation. it is time to think about a single eu banking code, which not only sets out the pillar 1capital requirements ( as is already the case by virtue of the crr ), but also standardises the organisational and governance requirements for credit institutions, with a view to the wide range of activities that banks are authorised to conduct. in addition, the enforcement mechanisms need to be coordinated with the ssm regulation as much