activities in europe and has, hence, supported the smooth transmission of our common monetary policy across the euro zone. despite this achievement in the field of financial integration, it has become evident that this is not enough. in particular, in the field of retail payments and securities settlement i see a lot more to do! this monetary union was culminated with the establishment of the central bank under the banking act of 1875 and the introduction of the “ deutsche mark ” as single currency. in my intervention today i will, therefore, focus on two projects that aim to address the fragmentation still present in the field of retail payments and securities settlement : the single euro payments area ( sepa ) and target2 securities ( t2s ). let me start with sepa. as you are certainly aware, just recently, we published the eurosystem ’ s 7th progress report on sepa, in which we welcome the overall progress made in delivering sepa but also indicate areas where more work is still needed. certainly, many stakeholders want to bring the sepa project further and have contributed to its progress so far. first, enormous progress has been made by the payments industry in delivering sepa. in particular, the sepa direct debit design and launch in november 2009 is, in my view, the most remarkable development on the payments industry side. the sepa direct debit is a key payment instrument as it is the first time that a utility company, like, for example, your telecommunications provider, can charge your account regardless of the country of its location and regardless of the location of the bank at which you have your account. this represents a big improvement as it finally allows customers to conduct all euro payments within europe from one single account. the sepa direct debit is good for everyone. companies and individuals will benefit from increased competition and will be able to get the payments provider that best fits their needs. in germany, the implementation of the sepa direct debit should not represent a big challenge as the sepa direct debit scheme is very similar to what already has been available at national level for a long time. in this respect, i encourage german stakeholders to find a pragmatic solution regarding the mandate migration. such solution should limit the efforts for companies as well as for customers. second, i believe that we should not forget the role public authorities are playing to get sepa up and running. all but one of the eu member states have finalised the transposition of the payment services directive in their national

core, neutral and borderless multi - currency securities settlement in central bank money across europe. 2 t2s scope and benefits let me first emphasize that t2s is not only a project for the euro - area countries but is open for providing settlement services for securities transactions in other currencies as well. this european approach does not only make sense from a financial integration perspective but is also driven by strict economic rationale. t2s will have network effects and generate economies of scale. this will not only be due to the very low settlement cost but also due to the liquidity savings for participants. in t2s, participants will only have to provide liquidity for one system, instead of 30 systems today. further benefits will result from harmonised processes throughout europe, and last, but certainly not least, t2s will – without doubt – introduce competition in the single market in general and in the post - trade industry in particular. we have made a lot of progress in t2s so far and i would like to briefly recapitulate the major recent achievements as well as the main future milestones. t2s recent achievements and future milestones the t2s project started in summer 2006 and is currently half - way towards the go - live date in september 2014. right from the start, the eurosystem has closely involved the market in its deliberations on t2s such as for the development of the user requirements. transparency and co - operation have become core assets of t2s. after signing a memorandum of understanding with 30 csds in europe in 2009, the eurosystem has worked on a framework agreement with csds and we hope to finalise the negations next year. regarding non euro area central banks participation in t2s we are currently discussing with the central banks of denmark, sweden, norway, iceland, switzerland, the uk and poland. a crucial topic for all stakeholders is the “ pricing ”. the eurosystem has been very transparent on its cost and on the way it intends to set its prices guided by the principle of full cost recovery that applies for t2s. the t2s programme board has proposed to the governing council to set the price for a dvp instruction in t2s at 15 cents and to guarantee this price until the end of 2018 under certain conditions. the programme board is confident that it will be able to further lower settlement fees after 2018 since its proposal is based on rather conservative assumptions.