the system until today, over 113 million transactions have been carried out, and the average time of execution is 1. 1 seconds. aware of our role of a change catalyst in our country, the national bank of serbia did not stop there. owing to a well established infrastructure of its ips system, it is introducing new, innovative instant payment solutions. by using the mobile banking application, our citizens can make instant payments at physical and online points of sale. they can pay their bills at any time of the day, from the comfort of their home, by scanning the qr code with their mobile banking applications. they can also make instant transfers of money at any time of the day, all year round, knowing only the mobile phone number registered by the payee for that service. we have our national dinacard and we have been constantly modernising it, aware of the importance of costs, but still more so of the independence and stability of the domestic financial system. we also established cooperation with two large international card systems ( american discover and chinese unionpay ), enabling the use of dinacard abroad as well. we have also seen a rise in cashless payments : in the past five years, the number of mobile banking users in the republic of serbia has risen by 254 %, while the number of electronic banking users has increased by 106 %. • • we enabled financial service consumers in the republic of serbia to conclude financial service contracts by using video identification, with full transparency, security and protection of citizens ’ rights. just like everyone, we sometimes ask ourselves whether our huge efforts have a purpose. however, the figures are reassuring and instil us with courage to move forward. as many as 306, 644 distance contracts have been concluded until today, up by 45 % compared to last year. answering market needs, we also adopted the law on digital assets, whereby serbia became one of the few countries in the world to regulate this area. by weighing up the benefits of introduction of a central bank digital currency in an environment where instant payments have fully taken root, we are currently analysing the introduction of a new financial instrument from the functional and technical aspect, while also examining the legal framework necessary for the functioning of the payment instrument. as regional cooperation is important for our country, we participate in the open balkan initiative, jointly contributing to the region ’ s prosperity. to enable more efficient and cheaper payment transactions in euros for citizens and businesses, the national bank of serbia introduced the systems of international

, we have had the opportunity to see that, contrary to the earlier expectations of market participants, y - o - y inflation in most advanced and emerging economies increased further. euro area inflation rose from 5. 0 % in december to 5. 1 % in january, reaching double - digit levels in some members. although this does not, at first glance, confirm the assessments of leading central banks about the temporary nature of current inflation, one should bear in mind that in most countries inflation is still largely driven by rising energy and food prices. also, there are countries that are faced with high core inflation, both due to the strengthening of depreciation pressures on their national currencies, and the overheating of their economies in the pre - pandemic period. as for inflation in serbia, according to our new projection, we expect y - o - y inflation in q1 2022 to move around the december level of 7. 9 % or slightly above it, and then to decline from q2 onwards and settle in the range from 3. 5 % to 4 % at year - end. going forward, it is expected to slow down further and move around the target midpoint until the end of the projection horizon. the effects of the new agricultural season will contribute the most to the slowdown in inflation, as they will directly affect the prices of fruit and vegetables, and through lower production costs, the prices of processed food as well. we expect that the gradual exit from the pandemic will help reduce the supply - demand gap globally and solve the problem of halts in supply chains, which could, consequently, lead to lower cost - push pressures. an important factor of lower inflation will be the expected subsiding of cost - push pressures on account of the prices of oil, gas, electricity and primary agricultural commodities, according to futures, as well as the drop - out of last year ’ s hikes in petroleum product prices from y - o - y calculations. as any other projection, this projection carries its own risks, which are associated mostly with the international environment and are slightly skewed to the upside. my colleagues will explain them in more detail later on. chart 1inflation projection ( y - o - y rates, in % ) - 1 source : nbs. amid stronger cost - push pressures and the need to impact inflation expectations and prevent the second - round effects of rising global food and energy prices on other products and services, the nbs continued