providing the ecb with alternative channels for transmitting monetary policy and by enabling capital markets to play a role in cushioning asymmetric shocks. however, to facilitate the mobility and free flow of capital and financial assets across europe, it is essential that an efficient underlying infrastructure is in place. a lot has been achieved already, but still we need to ensure that we use the market infrastructure as effectively as possible. target2 - securities nine years ago this month ( on 23 may 2008 ), the governing council issued a proposal to all european central securities depositories ( csds ) to join t2s. the project was backed by the european parliament, but the ecofin council specified three requirements : ( i ) the platform should be multicurrency ; ( ii ) participation in t2s should not be compulsory ; and ( iii ) access to 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches central bank money should not be restricted for non - participating csds. nine years on and the first roll - out phase of t2s is almost complete. the system is multicurrency and the danish krone is set to join in october 2018. the majority of european markets will be connected, although participation remains voluntary. and some csds outside the european union have even expressed an interest in joining t2s. this february, the successful migration of six csds from austria, germany, hungary, luxembourg, slovakia and slovenia doubled the settlement volume in t2s. today, a daily average of around 500, 000 transactions is settled on the platform. this represents 90 % of the transaction volume that is expected to be settled on the platform after the end of the full migration in september 2017. the volume is in line with the expected yearly forecast done by the advisory group on market infrastructures for securities and collateral. the most recent survey from march 2017 shows that the overall volume growth for the next two years is anticipated to be 5. 3 % on average. additionally, when the danish krone joins next year we expect the volume to increase by 5. 5 million transactions per year. with the introduction of t2s, the average cost at market infrastructure level per transaction has decreased significantly – in particular for cross - csd transactions. our initial cost estimations showed that the average fee per domestic csd settlement in the euro area was 73 euro cent while cross - border transactions were up to ten times more expensive. the launch of t2s has brought the transaction fee per instruction down to 15 euro cent

and he has the data to support that statement at his fingertips. “ the sale of durable consumer goods has grown by 4. 5 % in a year, share prices have risen by 13 % since the start of this year, the price of capital for non - financial firms is 7. 7 % – which is similar to pre - crisis levels. for banks, too, funding has become considerably cheaper. ” in short, financial conditions have improved. “ even though some critics said that quantitative easing would be less effective here than in the united states, because much of the financing is provided by banks. they forget that banks are listed on the stock exchange too. ” but constancio disagrees that things are going well enough to already start tapering off quantative easing – inflation expectations are too low for that. until inflation comes sustainably close to 2 %, the ecb will continue to intervene in the financial markets, with the attendant risks such as rapid asset price increases and the disadvantage of low returns for pension funds. the sharp depreciation of the euro is another side effect. does constancio think that will result in a global currency war? “ exchange rates reflect the economic situation in the various countries. the us economy, for example, is in a completely different phase of the business cycle than europe. that explains bis central bankers ’ speeches why monetary policy here is not the same as in the united states. the g20 also look at it that way. ’ do you feel responsible for the fact that dutch pension funds and insurance firms are struggling with the current low market interest rates? “ all policy measures have their side effects. there is collateral damage, but we have a mandate and that states that we must maintain price stability. having said that, it is important to note that insurance firms especially have not done so badly in recent years. the value of their assets increased precisely on the back of the lower interest rates and they were able to push up the profit per share, more so than the banks could in any case. low interest rates are now causing problems, but it is exactly our objective to bring things back to normal. once we have price stability, interest rates will also go up again. ” “ here and there, we see that the maturity of the investments is out of sync with the maturity of liabilities. we also see that few strategies have yet been designed that would render insurance firms immune to this mismatch. that is why they should be cautious about the promises that