and remote transactions, as well as bill payments. see ecb ( 2020 ), study on the payment attitudes of consumers in the euro area ( space ), forthcoming. [ 2 ] whether they are made at the physical point of sale or online and whether they are made by private individuals, businesses or the public sector. [ 3 ] source : ecb staff estimates based on payments statistics ( ecb statistical data warehouse ) and findings from ecb ( 2020 ), ibid. [ 4 ] payments at the physical point of sale and person - to - person payments. [ 5 ] as of 2019, cash is used by euro area adults for 73 % of in - person transactions in terms of volume and 48 % in terms of value. card payments account for most of the remainder : 24 % in terms of volume and 41 % in terms of value. source : ecb ( 2020 ), op. cit. [ 6 ] examples of e - payment providers include paypal, sofort and afterpay. card payments account for approximately half of all remote purchases, and e - payments for approximately one - quarter, in terms of both volume and value. source : ecb ( 2020 ), ibid. https : / / www. ecb. europa. eu / press / key / date / 2020 / html / ecb. sp201127 ~ a781c4e0fc. en. html 4 / 6 01 / 12 / 2020 from the payments revolution to the reinvention of money [ 7 ] direct debits account for 41 % of bill payments in terms of volume and 37 % in terms of value. credit transfers account for 20 % of bill payments in terms of volume and 29 % in terms of value. source : ecb ( 2020 ), ibid. [ 8 ] about 41 % of respondents to a recent survey say they have reduced their use of cash. the vast majority of them expect to continue to pay less with cash after the pandemic is over. see ecb ( 2020 ), “ survey on the impact of the pandemic on cash trends ( impact ) ”, in ecb ( 2020 ), ibid. [ 9 ] in terms of the total volume of in - person transactions by euro area adults, cash declined from 79 % in 2016 to 73 % in 2019. in terms of the value of in - person transactions, it fell from 54 % to 48 %. in some countries, the use

stance so the challenge we face is how to deliver the necessary policy stance. since the start of the pandemic, monetary policy in the euro area has gone through three phases. in the first phase – the phase of fragmentation – the flexibility of our pandemic emergency purchase programme ( pepp ) [ 10 ] averted an unjustified widening of spreads which would have disrupted monetary policy transmission. as a result, speculators stopped using short positions on particular euro area sovereigns as a way of expressing their negative views on the global economy. in the second phase, the pepp increasingly became a tool for steering the overall monetary policy stance. its size and duration became the key parameters for loosening financing conditions and pushing down the euro area yield curve to the low levels observed last december. in parallel, our targeted longer - term refinancing operations ( tltros ) successfully pinned down bank lending rates to some of the lowest levels on record. we have now entered a third phase, in which we need to preserve accommodative financing conditions to support the recovery and the convergence of inflation to our aim. this essentially means more focus on 10 / 19 anchoring key financial variables – above all, lending rates and the yield curve – as key indicators of the monetary policy stance. this approach should progressively add accommodation because, as actual and expected inflation pick up, anchoring nominal yields allows real yields to fall. and there should be no doubt that lower real yields would provide welcome additional stimulus, given how far we are from full capacity and the subdued level of current and expected inflation. implementing such a policy requires the central bank to broadly identify what level of nominal yields it is aiming to achieve ; to tailor its purchases to achieve that level ; and to be ready to intervene to the extent necessary. in december, when we recalibrated the pepp, the governing council determined that the financing conditions prevailing at that time were favourable. so, that constellation of financing conditions should be seen as the reference point for our policy moving forward. by that metric, the steepening in the nominal gdp - weighted yield curve we have been seeing is unwelcome and must be resisted. amid the increase in market yields ( chart 5 ) [ 12 ], president lagarde recently stated that “ the ecb is closely monitoring the evolution of longer - term nominal bond yields. ” [ 13 ] in the past week, euro area yields across the maturity spectrum, including risk - free rates,