banks will participate in key ccps across the globe. it is essential that the financial institutions that participate in and rely on ccps are able to conduct effective due diligence to understand the risks they face as members and take appropriate steps to mitigate those risks. third, owing to mutualisation, losses and liquidity shortfalls in the event of a member default may spread to other participants. crisis propagation may be further driven by interdependencies of changing complexity. these can exist between ccps and other financial institutions, for example, through interoperability arrangements. note that the same large financial institutions, being clearing members of many ccps, increase interdependencies even in the absence of interoperability. finally, existing differences in regulation may lead to regulatory arbitrage and potentially to a race to the bottom. moreover, the use of a centralised infrastructure depends, in some instances, on exemptions from registration or the application of equivalence or substituted compliance with foreign infrastructures. where foreign ccps cannot be used, compliance with mandatory clearing under domestic laws may inhibit cross - border transactions. new risks related to central clearing the globalisation process has triggered a trend towards global clearing that in itself may lead to further unintended consequences and may create new risks [ slide 6 ]. the trend towards increasingly large global ccps is similar in nature to that of horizontal integration which the committee on payment and settlement systems ( cpss ) looked at in greater detail in a bis central bankers ’ speeches report of 20101, concluding that larger global ccps may have certain advantages, but may also lead to systemic risks, reduced benefits of central clearing, and regulatory frictions. moreover, it appears that for many banks, indirect access is their preferred way to get access to clearing services so as to comply with the clearing obligation. client clearing seems thus to be dominated by a few large global intermediaries. a factor contributing to this concentration may be higher compliance burdens, where only the very largest of firms are capable of taking on cross - border activity. this concentration creates a higher degree of dependency on this small group of firms. there are also concerns about client access to this limited number of firms offering client clearing services. for example, there is some evidence of clearing firms “ cherry picking ” clients, while other end - users are commercially unattractive customers and hence unable to access centrally cleared markets. these are all developments that i believe the international regulatory community may wish to carefully monitor and act

, thereby underpinning economic activity and safeguarding medium - term price stability. against this background, the governing council decided the following : first, we will continue to conduct net asset purchases under the pandemic emergency purchase programme ( pepp ) with a total envelope of €1, 850 billion until at least the end of march 2022 and, in any case, until the governing council judges that the coronavirus crisis phase is over. based on a joint assessment of financing conditions and the inflation outlook, the governing council expects purchases under the pepp over the next quarter to be conducted at a significantly higher pace than during the first months of this year. we will purchase flexibly according to market conditions and with a view to preventing a tightening of financing conditions that is inconsistent with countering the downward impact of the pandemic on the projected path of inflation. in addition, the flexibility of purchases over time, across asset classes and among jurisdictions will continue to support the smooth transmission of monetary policy. if favourable financing conditions can be maintained with asset purchase flows that do not exhaust the envelope over the net purchase horizon of the pepp, the envelope need not be used in full. equally, the envelope can be recalibrated if required to maintain 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches favourable financing conditions to help counter the negative pandemic shock to the path of inflation. we will continue to reinvest the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the pepp until at least the end of 2023. in any case, the future roll - off of the pepp portfolio will be managed to avoid interference with the appropriate monetary policy stance. second, net purchases under our asset purchase programme ( app ) will continue at a monthly pace of €20 billion. we continue to expect monthly net asset purchases under the app to run for as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of our policy rates, and to end shortly before we start raising the key ecb interest rates. we also intend to continue reinvesting, in full, the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the app for an extended period of time past the date when we start raising the key ecb interest rates, and in any case for as long as necessary to maintain favourable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation. third, the governing council decided to keep the key ecb interest rates unchanged. we expect them to remain at their present or lower levels until we have seen the inflation outlook