and as a measure for covering possible foreign exchange risks for the ecb, the governing council endorsed, in line with the statute of the escb, an ecb recommendation for a council regulation which would authorise the ecb to increase its capital from the current level of 5 billion euros to up to twice that amount. ( f ) monetary and foreign exchange policy further decisions have also been taken with regard to preparing the monetary and foreign exchange policy of the euro area. on previous occasions i have mentioned to you that legal acts are under preparation which specify general principles to be followed by the national central banks when carrying out operations in domestic assets and liabilities and in foreign exchange reserve assets remaining with the national central banks. such instruments, which are based on provisions of the statute of the escb, aim from a legal point of view at ensuring the singleness of the ecb ’ s monetary policy and the consistency of such transactions with the community ’ s exchange rate and monetary policies. against this background, the governing council today adopted an ecb guideline which establishes certain reporting obligations for the national central banks ’ domestic asset and liability management operations and subjects such transactions to the prior approval of the ecb whenever they exceed a certain amount. a similar ecb guideline was adopted which subjects all operations in foreign reserve assets – including gold – which exceed a certain amount to the approval of the ecb. in addition, the governing council adopted an ecb guideline according to which any participating member state ’ s transactions whose foreign exchange working balances which exceed a certain amount must be notified to the ecb in advance. a similar arrangement is envisaged between the ecb and the commission of the european communities for all foreign exchange transactions carried out in the context of implementing the commission ’ s budget. in the context of the statutory function of the escb to contribute to the smooth conduct of policies of competent authorities in the field of banking supervision and financial stability, the governing council discussed the main driving forces that are likely to affect the eu banking systems in the medium and long term, including the establishment of emu. the council members hold the view that the establishment of emu is expected to reinforce the structural tendencies that are already under way in the eu banking systems. these tendencies include the reduction of excess capacity, pressure on profitability, enhanced competition, increased internationalisation and geographical diversification. one important aspect is the fact that eu banks seem to have significantly increased their awareness of the strategic implications of the introduction of the

in december 2020. 11. fca and bank of england publish proposals for regulating stablecoins | bank of england 12. uk payment markets 2023 | policy and guidance | uk finance 13. unlocking digital competition, report of the digital competition expert panel - gov. uk ( www. gov. uk ) 14. bank of england and hm treasury respond to digital pound consultation | bank of england 15. people ’ s use of digital payments today also generates personal data, and there is a robust legal regime in place around the access that the public and private sectors can have to that data. 16. the bank of england and the fca issue joint consultation and draft guidance on the digital securities sandbox | bank of england 17. provided entrants have completed the requisite testing and engagement with supervisors. 18. this is due to a range of reasons, including some firms not having access to the central bank balance sheet or having cost - effective arrangements with private settlement banks. that said, the barriers to entry for direct access to the uk wholesale payment system chaps ( such as the cost of technical infrastructure required ) has reduced in recent years and, we expect, will continue to decrease. hence, the bank of england is reviewing whether the set of financial institutions with access to rtgs should be widened further - reviewing access to rtgs accounts for settlement | bank of england. 19. the real time gross settlement service : an open platform to drive innovation - speech by victoria cleland | bank of england 20. bank of england publishes policy for omnibus accounts in rtgs | bank of england 21. synchronisation is one of the key priority areas for further work as part of the future roadmap for rtgs once the new core ledger and settlement engine go live later this year. we are now working closely with industry to assess business cases and define the high level design of priority features before deciding which features to implement and in what order. future roadmap for rtgs | bank of england 22. project meridian : innovating transactions with synchronisation ( bis. org ) 23. for example – the banque de france reserve bank of india, the swiss national bank, the central bank of brazil, the monetary authority of singapore, and the hong kong monetary authority, the. 24. uniformity of money is also supported by having robust regulatory regimes for private issuers of money ( to ensure that banks are robust enough to always honour their commitment to convert deposits into cash one -