the risk of banks granting forbearance to “ zombie ” firms. our economic governance framework, the european semester, has been effective in informing and exchanging views on our economies. but member states don ’ t walk the talk. the macroeconomic imbalance procedure always lacked teeth and none of the 2018 recommendations for euro area countries have been fully implemented. in this context, national productivity boards are useful complements that could strengthen the european semester discussion. completing the single market second, we must make better use of the economies of scale offered by the single market. 20 years after the introduction of the euro, we are faced with a paradox. while the single currency was originally conceived as a complement to the single market, lack of progress towards the completion of the single market now hampers the deepening of emu. the single market was initially established with free cross - border trade in goods in mind. but the structure of our economies has changed fundamentally since then. the services sector today accounts for more than 75 % of european employment, compared with 45 % in 1970. as value added and employment shift from the manufacturing to the services sector, the single market is increasingly losing traction as an engine of growth. despite the services package, there are still 5, 000 national regulations protecting the delivery of different types of services across member states. these barriers stand in the way of european services firms achieving scale and profitability. as a result, there are about three times as many services firms in the eu as in the united states, despite the economies being of broadly similar size. fragmentation perpetuates a lack of competition and blocks a healthy consolidation around the most efficient firms. and larger firms generally invest more in human and brand capital as well as in intangible assets, such as intellectual property rights, software and databases. they are also more likely to export than smaller firms. completing the single market, in particular for services, is therefore a central pillar in our efforts to boost weak productivity growth. it will make our monetary union more resilient and support the normalisation of real interest rates towards higher, positive levels. launching a capital markets union third, if firms are to expand and grow, we need to broaden and deepen the funding mix available for productive investments. firms in the euro area primarily rely on bank lending to finance their debt. this raises two broad concerns. the first is that over 80 % of euro area bank lending remains domestic. this constrains competition for good credit and amplifies

sharing arrangements in place and rely on cooperative oversight where appropriate. putting the response to stablecoins aside, there is no shortage of initiatives from central banks ’ and standard - setting bodies to increase their knowledge of technological innovations and their implications for the financial sector. indeed, a number of internationally coordinated efforts have tackled issues related to financial inclusion and remittances. nevertheless, i have to admit that the latest developments have raised more fundamental questions about the suitability of existing forms of money for meeting the new and emerging needs of economic actors, the role of the public sector and, more recently, the possibility that central banks could issue their own digital currencies. in this environment, fulfilling the central bank ’ s mandate has taken on a new dimension and requires an active role in driving change. eurosystem initiatives the ecb is not the only driver of change in this field, but we are determined to play a proactive role. our efforts, are focused on four main areas : first, we are investing in instant payments infrastructure. since 2014, the ecb has fostered the development of a pan - european instant payments scheme under the european payments council. the euro retail payments board – a high - level strategic body tasked with fostering integration, innovation and competitiveness of euro retail payments – continues to build momentum on instant payments, by identifying outstanding challenges to adoption and recommending measures to overcome these challenges. last year, the ecb launched target instant payment settlement ( tips ), a platform that enables payment service providers to transfer funds to their customers in real time, on a 24 / 7 / 365 basis – and that settles in central bank money. second, we are treading new ground. the ecb has been exploring how to apply new technologies, particularly distributed ledger technologies, to financial market infrastructures both within the european central banking community and globally through “ stella ” – our joint research project with the bank of japan. we are also assessing the value of central bank digital currencies ( cbdc ) for european citizens and the economy. we are analysing the forms cbdc could take with a view to fulfilling its underlying motivations while mitigating possible negative consequences for monetary stability and financial intermediation. third, we are reviewing our oversight of payments. the aim is to future - proof the existing eurosystem oversight frameworks for payment instruments, schemes and arrangements by applying a holistic, agile and functional approach. in accordance with its mandate the ecb, together with