it is constructed differently. we are a eurosystem, while supervision is not. for the supervisors there are still a lot of national regulations to respect. if a supranational body like the single resolution mechanism ( srm ) were to use only european law, things would be clear. that would be our preference. but in supervision sometimes national law prevails and there is still a lot of divergence between national laws that the single supervisor has to respect. how would you centralise the whole thing? different agencies exist, such as the european banking authority ( eba ), the european securities and markets authority ( esma ) and the european insurance and occupational pensions authority ( eiopa ). but they only have what is essentially a coordination role at the moment. the single supervisory mechanism ( ssm ) at the ecb has the effective supervisory function for banking. for all the agencies, there are proposals for improvement on the table. for securities markets, another important piece of draft regulation is the european market infrastructure regulation 2 ( emir2 ). if we have to contact 25 different regulators or supervisors in order to get a picture of who and what in the single market is allowed and under what conditions, it would be extremely cumbersome. from that point of view, we welcome an increase in efficiency at european level. we consider the completion of the banking union important for the single market and the single currency, in other words, one market, one banking supervisor and one security supervisor in the medium term. that should be accompanied by one deposit insurance system as well. but i understand those who say, “ let ’ s first clean up all the remaining negative elements from the past before we accept a sharing of responsibility at european level. that is exactly what we are doing now by pushing for the resolution of non - performing loans. we ’ re trying to put supervisory standards on the same level. it is not enough to assign only the responsibility to the european level, we also need a level playing field in terms of the tools and their implementation. the commission de surveillance du secteur financier1 ( cssf ) has recently expressed its concern about its sanctioning powers. what do you think of director general claude marx ’ s statement? i don ’ t know this statement. according to european law, the authority for criminal cases is still a national affair. when it comes to administrative sanctioning, that ’ s another issue. some propose setting up a sanctioning authority

that does nothing but sanctioning. i don ’ t know, and i do not have to know, national initiatives in a national context in this respect. on the central bank side we have sanctions at national but also at european level. you ’ re referring to the case of the latvian bank ablv... the latvian subsidiary. i read in the media that the supervisory side of the ecb informed the 2 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches national authorities of what happened and suggested to them to use the tools they have at their disposal. since the way the national tools were used is now the subject of a court case, i cannot comment further on it. let the court decide. the national central bank for its part took its own measures. and they suspended the bank. the ecb did not suspend the whole group [ from monetary policy operations ] until later. the banque centrale du luxembourg ( bcl ) suspended the group before the ecb because they have the possibility to do so at national level. would you have another example? there are some investment funds which ought to provide information and statistics to the national central bank, which then reports to us. but some funds don ’ t do it. we have asked the bcl several times to initiate sanctions because we consider that the local authority has clear knowledge of the matter. i think they are now ready to do it. i would not say centralisation is better per se. sometimes proximity leads to higher efficiency. another topic which is concerning the ecb and national lawmakers is virtual currencies. luxembourg and other countries in the eu are granting more and more importance to virtual currencies, but you seem to be really cautious. what do you see as the biggest potential threats emanating from cryptocurrencies? one should consider various aspects. one is financial stability, the second is consumer protection, the third is investor protection, the fourth is market integrity and the fifth is anti - money laundering. concerns regarding these aspects are especially high in relation to what you call cryptocurrencies. i call them virtual tokens, by the way. they are like the tokens you buy when you go to a casino. studies have shown that 50 % of transactions made using these virtual tokens and 25 % of users are linked to illicit activities. there are four main risks. the first risk is market liquidity. the market is excessively concentrated, with about 96 % of transactions being carried out by