speech governor lars rohde, suerf conference, new york 16 october 2019 check against delivery dear ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the invitation to share my view on technological change and digitalisation in a danish and international framework. slide 2 : the nordics are digital frontrunners denmark is a highly digitalised country. together with the other nordic countries and the netherlands, denmark is a digital frontrunner with top rankings on digital performance. and digitalisation is indeed widespread throughout danish society. danes are heavy users of digital solutions and both the public sector and the private sector provide a vast amount of digital services such as online banking and e - commerce. these services are not only used by the younger generations, but also by the elderly : four out of five danes in the age group of 75 to 89 used online banking last year. slide 3 : the public sector provides a vast amount of digital services how did denmark become this digital frontrunner? the answer is that this position has developed over decades and that the danish government has taken an active role in supporting the digital transformation of the society. the decision to create a civil registration system back in 1968 was a key element in this transformation. the national register contains basic personal information on all citizens who have a civil registration number. a similar system for companies was implemented in 1985. these registries allow for unique identification of all citizens and companies and they constitute the basis for all public and many private digital services. since 2001 denmark has had multi - year public strategies for digitalisation. today, most public services are available on an online portal for public services – borger. dk – ( " citizen. dk " ), and the tax authority's homepage – skat. dk – ( " tax. dk " ). to facilitate digital interactions with public authorities each dane has a personal e - id to access services securely – nemid – ( " easy - id " ), a mandatory bank account for transfers from authorities – page 1 of 5 nemkonto – ( " easy account " ), and a digital mailbox for letters and messages from the public sector – e - boks – ( " e - box " ). when the infrastructure was in place, many online self - services were made mandatory, and in 2014 it became mandatory for individuals and businesses to use digital post when communicating with public authorities. in fact, 80 per cent of all letters from the government, banks, pension firms, etc. are digital and

fall disproportionately on certain industries, starting with the house - building sector and related services and lead to falls in employment. some households and companies are likely to be driven over the default threshold. tighter credit conditions could also affect the potential output of the economy – reducing the capacity of the economy to produce goods and services. the economy ’ s supply capacity reflects not only the number of people who work and the number of machines at their disposal, but also how productive our companies are at using that labour and capital to produce output. and the innovations in new products and new processes which drive productivity growth are financed in part by bank lending. in short, the process of deleveraging that was designed to alleviate pressure on banks ’ capital position can lead to an additional wave of credit losses, coupled with higher write - off rates, given the lower level of property prices ( chart 7 ). and, welcome though the reforms of basel ii and accounting rules are in many respects, they can accentuate the squeeze on capital because the requirements are based on risk weights which rise when arrears are increasing and collateral values are falling. house prices and consumption one important feedback is through the housing market which is continuing to weaken. the number of loan approvals for house purchases is at a record low, the ratio of sales to stocks is approaching the levels of the early 1990s, and prices are now down 12 % on their peak of late last year. of course falls in house prices tend to coincide with a slowdown in the wider economy because they are affected by the same factors – notably falls in real income and employment. but they can also feed back into activity. first they slow housing investment and transaction flow which hits builders and related services like estate agents and conveyancers. the purchases of white goods and furniture tend to go hand in hand with transactions in the housing market. so the slowdown in the number of people moving home is likely to impact on spending on those goods. falling house prices limit how much households and small businesses can borrow today and that pulls down consumption and investment. also by reducing their expectations of what they will be able to borrow tomorrow either to compensate for a reduction in income or a need to spend, some households and firms may increase their precautionary savings. finally, falling house prices redistribute wealth. those who already own houses and expect to trade down in future and realise a capital gain, are worse off. on the other side, those hoping to trade