past few months, we expect gdp growth to pick up soon. this expectation is, of course, predicated on the assumption that the sovereign debt crisis will be overcome step by step and will not further intensify. so what has to be done to overcome the crisis? 4. containing the crisis when the sovereign debt crisis first emerged in greece at the beginning of 2010, policymakers reacted swiftly with fiscal rescue packages and unconventional monetary policy measures. alas, nearly two years on, the crisis is still with us and has even intensified. it has now spilled over from greece to other countries. with regard to greece, some progress has been made during recent weeks. let me say that i fundamentally welcome the fact that the euro - area finance ministers came to an agreement on monday regarding a second financial assistance programme for greece. in order to achieve a turnaround and allow further assistance, it is now essential for greece to deliver on the promises that have been made. bis central bankers ’ speeches ultimately, greece cannot be forced to comply with the programme. but it should be clear that no further disbursements will be warranted if greece fails to keep its side of the bargain. a crucial requirement now is to prepare for the eventuality of a further escalation of the crisis by initiating appropriate ring - fencing measures. the resilience of the banking system is to be increased by imposing additional capital buffers. the required size of these buffers has been determined through a stress test conducted by the european banking authority ( eba ). it is now up to the banks, where necessary with the assistance of national government support schemes, to meet these requirements by the middle of the year. policymakers have responded by devising comprehensive measures to make the euro area less vulnerable. these measures include strengthening the european rescue mechanisms. it has been decided that the efsf and the esm will have a combined lending capacity of 500 billion euros. in march, euro - area political leaders will assess whether it is necessary to increase this firepower even further. whatever the outcome is, a disproportionately large share of the financing of these rescue mechanisms is being and will continue to be borne by germany by virtue of the country ’ s top rating and the high degree of confidence it enjoys among investors. the imf has played an important role since the onset of the sovereign debt crisis – by co - funding assistance programmes, but also by contributing to a thorough analysis of the root causes of the economic

nearly everywhere. but there are some important differences, too. in general, we have to acknowledge that, even from a purely technical point of view, a cbdc ( central bank digital currency ) needs a much deeper cooperation with the industry than an analogue banknote. a cbdc ( central bank digital currency ) has to be developed in such a way that it is also interoperable with the storage of commercial bank money in digital accounts. otherwise, it will be difficult to organise the smooth interplay between these two types of money. and users have a strong preference to keep all their different payment solutions in a single wallet, be they cbdc ( central bank digital currency ), cards or account - to - account payments. therefore, cbdc ( central bank digital currency ) will need a kind of rulebook that governs how it is handled among central banks, commercial banks, other providers and, last but not least, end - users. let me illustrate this point in a little more detail : to be suitable for use in applications based on distributed ledger technology ( dlt ( distributed ledger technologie ) ), a cbdc ( central bank digital currency ) also has to be constructed in a token - based environment. the technical handling of tokens might need additional rules, compared to credit transfers based on accounts. what also needs to be organised is how a token - based cbdc ( central bank digital currency ) can be made interoperable with the traditional world of bank accounts. the most striking difference may concern how cbdc ( central bank digital currency ) is perceived by its users. since cash can be identified as something unique by every user based on its particular look and feel, designing a cbdc ( central bank digital currency ) will be a big challenge. as the increasing possibilities of making payments online are not really clear to the majority of users. accordingly, ensuring the recognisability of a cbdc ( central bank digital currency ) will be a challenge. in a physical wallet, cash – central bank money – can easily be distinguished from a card as a means of payment. in a digital wallet, it will not be that obvious what is “ behind ” a transaction – i. e. what is the source that makes a payment happen. a tokenised card or a direct debit based on commercial bank money as a “ background instrument ” might feel the same for most users. this may sound a little odd, but we can learn from china about the communication challenge surrounding cbdc (