are not just about fostering innovation and improving customer convenience. they are also about promoting further financial integration among member states. indeed, in the euro area, where different legal frameworks and customer habits prevail, there is always a risk of new fragmentation arising from the development of national or closed - loop solutions which are not interoperable. to counter this risk, the european payments industry is now launching a truly pan - european instant payments scheme. tips therefore not only has the potential to help better prepare incumbents for the challenges arising from digital giants, such as alibaba, apple and google, who are integrating payment services into their ecosystems, it also has the potential to be a catalyst for spurring progress in two old failings of our current system : cross - border retail payments and financial inclusion. 12 cross - border payments not only allow shoppers to easily buy goods online from overseas, but also allow foreign workers to send money home, supporting financial inclusion and development. however, these payment channels are generally much slower, less transparent and far more expensive than domestic ones. improvements here are the best way of rising to the challenges arising from currently unsafe crypto assets. i believe this should be a key priority for international action. modernising real - time gross settlement systems this brings me to my second point, the modernisation of our rtgs systems. their names imply that these systems are already fast. they settle transactions between financial market infrastructures, central banks and credit institutions in real time. but these systems are often built on legacy technologies, sometimes dating back to the 1980s, and have been created to meet local needs for participants. since then, however, the financial system has become truly global, with banks increasingly 3 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches operating across borders and time zones through participation in multiple payment systems. a key element of many rtgs system modernisation projects is therefore implementing a messaging standard that works across the globe. of course, migrating from a legacy payment standard incurs costs. so, as with any other technological upgrade, it is important that a critical mass moves towards the new standard. the eurosystem is leading by example here. we are implementing the iso 20022 standard and offering multi - currency functionalities in our infrastructures. in the near future, both payment and securities settlement services will also undergo a technical and functional consolidation. specifically, we will roll out a new rtgs system with enhanced functionalities and optimised liquidity management for the participants. the

##fin. in the case of the ecb, we have already established a dlt infrastructure within the eu central bank community, which currently serves, first and foremost, as a learning tool. we have also teamed up with the bank of japan on the stella project – a series of studies on the potential use of dlt for financial market infrastructures. 9 remaining on top of technological developments also means that, in the cpmi, we need to constantly take the pulse of our existing international standards. but so far, it is fair to say that the pfmi have proven flexible enough to accommodate technological change, be it through complementary guidance – on cyber for example – or through high - level strategies, such as on wholesale payments fraud, as i will explain later. the second part of the strategy central banks should pursue entails drawing on less - disruptive existing technologies to make our current payment systems, which are convenient and have earned public trust, more efficient and safer. at the current juncture, this essentially means doing three things : 1. making retail payment systems instant and available 24 / 7 ; 2. modernising our rtgs systems ; and 3. enhancing cyber resilience. 2 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches let me briefly touch upon each of these three issues, starting with retail payment systems. making retail payment systems instant and available 24 / 7 today an increasing number of non - bank payment service providers are entering the domestic payments business, sometimes offering faster payments than the banks they are competing with. instant payment solutions can significantly increase the speed of retail payments. 10 with instant payments, funds are settled with finality and are available for use by the recipient within seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. since bitcoin transactions take, on average, about 15 minutes to validate, and even bitcoin enthusiasts acknowledge that this type of settlement cannot be considered reasonably irrevocable before at least one hour has passed, instant payments may render large parts of the alleged benefits of crypto assets redundant. instant payment solutions have been implemented, or are in the process of being developed, in many countries across the world. here in singapore, the launch of fast ( “ fast and secure transfers ” ) has resulted in a fundamental renewal of the payments infrastructure, with significant benefits for both merchants and customers. 11 later this year, the ecb will launch the target instant payment settlement ( tips ) service. in a currency union, instant payment solutions