johannes! gawaxab : launch of the n $ 100 banknote remarks by mr johannes! gawaxab, governor of the bank of namibia, at the launch of the n $ 100 banknote, luderitz, 4 march 2024. * * * councillor brigitte fredericks, deputy mayor of luderitz town, honourable local and regional councillors, police regional commander, commissioner marius katamila, captains of the industry, distinguished invited guests, staff of the bank of namibia present, members of the media, master of ceremonies, ladies and gentlemen, good morning, today, amidst the captivating landscapes of the great / / karas region, i stand before you, profoundly honoured. i extend my sincere gratitude to each one of you for gracing this momentous occasion with your presence. we gather today in luderitz – a metropolis that has played centre stage in our history and our prosperity and now is poised to play a leading role in our transformation. as a trading post in the early 19th century, it laid the cornerstone of namibia's economic foundation, a vital oasis amidst the vast unknown. here, amidst its humble streets, the seeds of freedom of speech and the freedom of the press were tenderly sown with the birth of the first print media in 1855. on this sacred ground, the first glimmer of namibia's wealth emerged, as zacharia lewala unearthed the first diamond in 1908, igniting a rush that would forever shape our nation's destiny, propelling us towards greatness. and it is in the echoes of luderitz's history, we find the roots of our financial infrastructure, with the establishment of namibia's inaugural stock exchange and the subsequent opening of standard bank namibia's inaugural branch in 1915. but its dark history, too, is not forgotten. the conquest and impact of colonialism is something luderitz has had to come to terms with. the policies of exploitation and dispossession are a legacy that we need to contend with. the disparities in wealth, in particular, are a vivid reminder that ours is a work in progress. another enduring legacy of luderitz – that we are recalling today is the introduction of the use of cash – that is physical banknotes and coins. with its bustling colonial 1 / 6 bis - central bankers'speeches economy, transactions then were conducted through bartering, where goods and services were exchanged directly without a standardised currency. but as

sovereign risk jarred with the single monetary policy. a fragmented banking system not only impaired monetary policy transmission. but more fundamentally, it called into question the singleness of money. money, it has to be remembered, is a liability of the banking system. banknotes represent only a fraction of the money we use daily ; the bulk of money is deposits. thus, for there to be a truly single money, there has to be full fungibility of deposits across borders. if confidence in national banking systems diverges, such that a deposit in one jurisdiction is seen to worth less than a deposit in another, then money within the euro area is no longer unquestionably single. 3. bringing consistency back to sum up, the problems the euro area has faced derive from the fact that it did not learn its own lesson. the stability of european countries in the second half of the 20th century was based on providing their national economies with the right accord of rules, institutions and instruments to produce desirable market outcomes. yet when it came to the euro area economy, these tried and tested principles were somehow overlooked. several policy areas were governed inconsistently, with little reflection given to how the different cogs wheels would fit together. the main aim of the euro area today is therefore to bring consistency back : that is, to make governance of different policy areas mutually consistent and internally consistent. let me briefly review how this is being addressed in the banking, fiscal and economic domains. banking union since 2012, the priority has been to restore consistency between the single monetary policy and other policies – that is, to guarantee the singleness of money irrespective of the fiscal health of sovereigns. essentially, this had to involve removing the fault lines between national banking systems that called into question the fungibility of deposits, and that meant bringing those national systems together into a single system. this is where the banking union comes in. banking union means three things : it means a single supervisory framework that minimises equally the risk that a euro area bank takes excessive risk and runs into failure. it means a single resolution framework, so that if a bank does still fail, it can be resolved in the same way, with limited use of taxpayer money, irrespective of where the bank is located or the fiscal strength of its government. and it means a system of deposit protection that provides depositors with equal confidence that their deposits are safe, regardless of jurisdiction. in terms of implementing these three elements, the euro area has