general economic policies of the european community. question : in your meeting today, could you describe what the mood was of the meeting and whether there was much debate about your move and much debate about the level of the move and also, whether it was an unanimous vote in the end. duisenberg : the mood was good. we had a very long and, i must say, very interesting discussion today. there were a few who were not very inclined to do something about the rate - but here i talk about a very few - and a very large majority was inclined to do something and supported the proposal as we put it before the council. and so, we had a very good discussion. for the final decision, i am afraid i have to tell you that we did not take a vote. but we know all the different views and so, finally, i could conclude as follows : the governing council decides that the main refinancing rate will be lowered from 3 % to 2. 5 %. question : you said there were no monetary risks of inflation at the moment. can we infer from today ’ s decision that there were monetary risks of deflation or is it purely a growth - oriented decision that you have taken today? duisenberg : no, we also see no risks of deflation emerging. we see that inflation has now remained, on a euro area - wide basis, constant at a rate of 0. 8 % four months in a row up to now. we see some risks on the upside, i. e. mainly the impact of rising energy prices, but that is by definition, as it was when it was on the downside, a temporary factor. we see some risks deriving from some wage settlements here and there in europe, those are the upside risks. we see some downside risks from a rather subdued outlook for general economic development in the entire euro area. but as such, the main thing is that we do not see the situation of price stability in which we entered the euro area, and which prevails until this moment, would be in any way endangered in the future. that gave us the leeway to take the measure i have just announced. question ( translation ) : mr. president, would you say you have admitted today that you are pursuing a business cycle - oriented monetary policy, which would constitute a change in model, compared with the deutsche bundesbank, which has always maintained that it does not pursue a business cycleoriented

these reforms are at different stages, the broader endeavour has been to achieve a greater degree of convergence in banking regulation across jurisdictions with a view to address the issue of regulatory arbitrage. a similar international effort is underway with regard to payment and settlement systems. as you are all aware, the one crucial segment of infrastructure which functioned effectively during the financial crisis was the payment and settlement system infrastructure. payment systems are the channels through which liquidity risks can get exacerbated and could very quickly turn into credit and systemic risks. in this sphere of payment systems, the measures taken by central banks the world - over in strengthening risk management in payment systems by introducing real time gross settlement systems and encouraging the private sector to set up cls bank for pvp transactions for settling foreign exchange transactions is indeed laudable. it was therefore found expedient in the wake of the financial crisis to revisit the existing three sets of standards which have guided the development of risk management standards in payment systems and securities settlement systems. together the two international - standard setting bodies in this area the committee on payment and settlement systems ( cpss ) and international organization of securities commissions ( iosco ) have published the “ principles for financial market infrastructures ” ( pfmi ) in april 2012. the pfmis replace the three existing sets of international standards set out in the core principles for systemically important payment systems ( cpss, 2001 ) ; the recommendations for securities settlement systems ( cpss - iosco, 2001 ) ; and the recommendations for central counterparties ( cpss - iosco, 2004 ). the cpss and iosco have strengthened and harmonized these three sets of standards by raising minimum requirements, broadening the scope of the standards to cover additional risk factors, and extending the scope to new types of fmis such as trade repositories. the 24 principles outlined in this report are categorized into nine broad categories : ( a ) general organization ( b ) credit and liquidity risk management ( c ) settlement ( d ) csds and exchange - of - value settlement systems ( e ) default management ( f ) general business and operational risk management ( g ) access ( h ) efficiency and ( i ) transparency. additionally cpss - iosco has released the ( i ) the cpss - iosco assessment methodology for the principles for fmis and the responsibilities for authorities and ( ii ) the cpss - iosco disclosure framework for fmis for public consultation with a 60 days comment period. the