the same entity, who is accountable to the customer? as the number of 3rd - party intermediaries involved in a financial service grows, there might also be increased operational risks. we will need to adapt our regulatory approaches. pay greater attention to market conduct, consumer protection, and technology risks. regulatory frameworks will need to become more modular and agile. entity - based regulation remains relevant for the provision of key services such as deposit - taking, insurance, and the offer of securities. but for the growing number of players who offer niche financial services, we need to rely increasingly on activity - based regulation. this is all still fairly familiar ground, as the fundamental structure of financial services remains largely intact. intermediaries continue to be at the centre, even as distribution becomes more decentralised with diverse players and new ways of connecting with customers. stepping a layer down, let us now examine the underlying infrastructure of financial services. technology is enabling a fundamentally different approach to financial infrastructure, compared to the centralised systems of today. take for example, open crypto networks based on self - executing smart contracts and noncustodial financial services, where users maintain control over their assets at all times. by replacing intermediaries and central parties, these networks aim to reduce both the cost and risk of finance. by decentralising key aspects of financial infrastructure, such as access, data, and code, open crypto networks can also potentially enhance inclusion and innovation. when firms of all sizes, and even individuals, can directly access financial infrastructure, it could mean more competition and inclusion. when transaction data is available to all participants, and not confined within the intermediary responsible for the transaction as is the case today, it could mean more contestability and transparency. w hen code can run directly and publicly on these networks, unlike proprietary code that runs on private servers, it could mean more interoperability and innovation. we are certainly not at the point where these self - governing networks can meet the high standards of governance, security, resilience that we demand of critical infrastructure. even so, central banks would do well to incorporate these innovations in designing the next generation of payment infrastructure. these ideas could be particularly relevant to the development of cbdcs. finally, we turn to the layer at the base of the system – the instruments, or forms of money that should confer the properties of a public good. 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches the decentralisation of instruments is most clearly

- year forward five - year ahead implied rate declined in 2014. currently it is hovering around 1. 7 %, slightly lower than the ecb ’ s spf ( 2015q1 ) results. bis central bankers ’ speeches as far as financial markets are concerned, the impact of the asset purchase programme accounts for most of the fall in euro area long - term sovereign bond yields since last december, as market participants anticipated the ecb ’ s qe programme. government bonds across a wide range of euro area countries traded at historically low and often negative yields. the decline was most pronounced in the longest maturities, with yields on french and german 10 - year bonds falling by around 60 basis points, while those on italian and portuguese bonds of the same maturity shrank by 70 and 90 basis points, respectively. yields on corporate euro - denominated debt have also gone done while the major european stock markets have risen from the end of 2014 by 17 % approximately ( chart 3b ). [ note : charts 3a and 3b do not capture the recent bond sell - off in early may, which was in my view a market reaction to an overshooting of euro area sovereign bond prices following the qe ’ s formal announcement by the ecb in january of this year. ] a case in point is that from just before the announcement of the ecb ’ s expanded asset purchase programme on 22 january to the close of business the day after, german 20 - year maturity yields fell by almost 25 basis points and italian 20 - year maturity yields fell by almost 35 basis points. furthermore, as we mentioned earlier, the euro depreciated by 11 % since last december, hitting a 12 - year low against the dollar ( chart 3a ). on the other hand, the effectiveness of the ecb ’ s qe programme in terms of contributing to a robust recovery in the euro area should have a significant final impact on the global economy and indeed in this part of the world. such an accommodative policy that aims to raise ultimately consumer confidence in the euro area, obviously stimulates imports from the rest of the world. an illustration of this is that total eu trade with asia reached €1. 03 trillion last year, almost double the value recorded a decade ago and, at the same time, the eu accounted for 22, 4 % of asian trade in 2014, with most of eu imports coming from china ( 6. 7 % of total eu imports ). the eu is also a