trades in central bank money, by concentrating securities and cash settlements in euro within an efficient single platform. t2s will act as a catalyst to integrate european post - trading financial services, and will foster competition by providing harmonised access to settlement services within the european financial market. conclusion while the successful development and implementation of all of these systems will involve a significant effort on the part of all those involved, the end result should provide significant benefits to the economy as a whole, as well as to all payment systems users, whether large corporate bodies, or private citizens. to conclude, i hope that i have managed to convey something of the significant changes that are occurring, and will continue to occur, in the arena of payment and settlement systems over the next few years, and in which ireland will play its full part. thank you for your attention. i will now call upon pat mcloughlin, the chief executive of the irish payment services organisation, to say a few words about the launch of sepa.

matthew elderfield : european banking regulation and the eurozone crisis address by mr matthew elderfield, deputy governor of the central bank of ireland and alternate chairman of the european banking authority, to the 4th cdu / csu congress in the bundestag, berlin, 26 march 2012. * * * these remarks are the authors personal views and do not necessarily reflect those of the eba or of the esrb, of which mr elderfield is a member of the general council. thank you for the invitation to join you today to discuss european banking regulation. in my brief time for opening remarks i would like to do three things : explain the actions the european banking authority ( eba ) has taken to address the eurozone financial crisis ; discuss the limits of regulatory action due to the feedback loop characteristics of the crisis and suggest two or three areas to explore to improve the current policy response to the crisis. the formation of the eba at the start of 2011 was a very significant milestone in the development of european regulation and the single market in banking. the eba is different from its predecessors in three important ways. first, its actions as policy - maker will mean that a single european rule book will become a reality and be directly binding on all eu banks. second, its remit for supervisory convergence and direct operational responsibilities – such as its role in colleges of supervisors – will make it increasingly influential in how supervision works on the ground in national authorities. and third, its responsibilities for crisis management mean that it will be at the forefront of the most important regulatory challenges of the day. this has, of course, been the case with the current eurozone financial crisis, first through a series of stress tests and, more recently, with its recommendation to create a temporary capital buffer to strengthen the european banking system. it is important to remember that the eba ’ s actions on capital were taken in response to not only market concerns but also calls for strengthening of capital from leading international and european policy makers. last autumn both the new managing director of the imf and the european systemic risk board, comprising the eu ’ s central banks and regulators, made strong calls for increased capital levels at europe ’ s banks. eba ’ s chairman, andrea enria, showed strong leadership to respond to those concerns by crafting a new initiative on capital which was adopted by the eba ’ s members. constructing correctly calibrated regulatory measures involving bank capital is extremely challenging in the current financial crisis. this is principally because of