, including the payments council in finland, should be highlighted in this relation. 9 these groups bring together the relevant payment system stakeholders to consider how future payment systems will change the whole financial ecosystem – also at the european and international levels. in a recent speech vice - president ansip, in charge of the digital single market, noted that common technical standards for mobile payments are needed to promote digital single market. this speech can be found here : http : / / europa. eu / rapid / press - release _ speech - 15 – 4937 _ en. htm. chaired by yves mersch, member of the executive board of the ecb, the erpb objective is to contribute to and to facilitate the further development of an integrated, innovative and competitive market for euro retail payments in the eu. the erpb is composed of members both from the supply and demand side of the market. bis central bankers ’ speeches are the future payment systems already here? where are we at the moment in relation to these five standards and innovative payment methods? even the most novel and debated virtual currencies do not meet these standards. so why doesn ’ t bitcoin meet the five criteria? bitcoin is not subject to the most basic principles governing payment systems, starting from the know - your - customer fundamental principle. continuity of operations and contingency planning are problematic. and fluctuations in the bitcoin value will impose additional costs to people who use bitcoins. 10 sometimes you hear a claim that these are not problems of bitcoin, per se, but of the bitcoin ecosystem. to the general public, these two are the same. it seems that even bitcoin is for virtual currencies what myspace was for social networks. digital purses, mobile phone apps and some other niche payment solutions exist, but all in all, we haven ’ t yet witnessed the emergence of a true future payment system. bits and pieces of a future payment system are incorporated in different payment methods of today, but none such exists yet that would meet all the five criteria. this is by no coincidence. banks and other established financial institutions are well entrenched in the payment landscape. it might not be in their best interest to develop new systems that cannibalize profits from their existing investments. the new - comers are facing an uphill battle in trying to establish a bridgehead within the payment landscape. still, it seems that something fundamental has changed. historically the usage

property investors have increased. funding costs and risks have also grown, raising costs for leveraged property investors and, in turn, contributing to the observed negative price dynamics in some markets. iii. 3 the euro area financial system turning to the euro area financial system, conditions in the euro area and other major money markets deteriorated significantly in mid - september, as the default of lehman brothers fuelled concerns about counterparty credit risk and challenged the widely - held view that any large bank, which was considered too big or too interconnected to fail, would be supported by public authorities. this event triggered a sharp increase in the spreads between euribor and eonia swap rates across all maturities ( as shown in chart 12 ). banks hoarded liquidity ( or lent only for the shortest maturities ) in view of growing concerns about the creditworthiness of counterparties and heightened uncertainty about their own liquidity positions. conditions in money markets in other advanced economies exhibited similar developments. since mid - september, central banks have stepped up the already remarkable levels of cooperation and provided liquidity in coordinated actions. moreover, the ecb and also other central banks have made extensive efforts to provide refinancing at longer maturities and to expand the lists of assets that are eligible as collateral in credit operations. not least thanks to these actions, the recent weeks have seen a noticeable improvement in the euro money market. for example, in the past week, the spreads between term deposit and overnight index swap rates declined considerably, by 15 to 20 basis points along all maturities, reflecting the continued fall in the euribor rates. the spreads fell to 80 basis points for the one - month maturity and 160 basis points for the 12 - month maturity. an interesting analysis related to the current problems in the money markets is presented in box 7 of the review which highlights the link between market liquidity and funding liquidity risk, on the basis of evidence from recent data. the results show that a negative relationship between high funding liquidity risk and low market liquidity was established only after the financial turmoil had erupted, while in “ normal ” times, there is no obvious relationship between the two measures. this supports the theoretical proposition ( advanced by recent academic research ) that interactions between the two measures emerge only when banks face funding constraints, that is, when shocks to banks ’ funding liquidity can lead to forced asset sales and may depress asset prices, with dire consequences for market liquidity. the tensions in the money market, and