success is based on the simplicity of the solutions offered and the real improvements they bring to end - users searching for information or who want to be in contact with each other. not only were these services simple, cheap and good, in retrospect they also seem very obvious. but, before these services existed, it would have been difficult to explain their usefulness – take online diaries, for example. “ payments and confidence - the views of the eurosystem ”, 16 september 2003. on 15 january 2008, a co - operation agreement was signed between zentraler kreditausschuss ( zka ) and paylife bank gmbh ( formerly europay austria ) on the acceptance of the german debit card ec karte in all paylife pos terminals in austria. today, i will focus on far - reaching developments in the field of retail payments in europe. the developments are grouped under the term “ sepa ” – single euro payments area. sepa is a key market - driven initiative, which aims to achieve a fully integrated market for euro retail payment services. market - driven, as i said, but with the considerable support of the european central bank and the european commission. what does sepa mean at a global level? for long, the sepa - vision seemed as remote and dreamy as the paradisiacal indonesian island that is actually called “ sepa ”. but the vision of a borderless payments area is now becoming a reality and in the search engines sepa island has already been crowed out by references to the sepa - project – much to the annoyance of the indonesian tourist industry, i guess. i expect that sepa will have a significant impact on global developments in retail payments systems. why? as with the developments in the internet, sepa will lead to simple, cheap and common services for end - users, which can be used irrespective of the end - user ’ s location. sepa will also be based on the latest international standards for end - to - end payments and will therefore have a seamless connection with the rest of the world. and, as with internet services, end - users will also find sepa very obvious in retrospect. indeed, once sepa instruments are on offer, in europe it will be also obvious to have a harmonised set of payment instruments based on international standards, instead of having to cope with national specificities and local payment instruments. the european banking industry, with the support

the outstanding amount of government securities was 47. 6 percent of gnp at the end of december 1931, compared with 181. 9 percent of gdp at the end of march 2011. third, the bank ’ s underwriting of government bonds in the early 1930s was associated with tighter capital controls in the early 1930s. by contrast, the financial market and other economic activities are much more globalized now. under those circumstances, the misconduct of monetary and fiscal policy, which leads to a deterioration in confidence in money, would affect long - term interest rates immediately. fourth, the relative size of a domestic financial market was smaller in the early 1930s than today, and the government securities markets were less developed. in the 1920s and in the early 1930s, the government issued its securities mainly through a syndicate of private financial institutions or through the deposit bureau of the ministry of finance. a large part of the fund of the deposit bureau came from postal savings. under such condition, the government lacked effective measures to issue a large amount of its securities promptly and smoothly. during the first several years of mr. takahashi in office, the bank was able to sell most of the underwritten government bonds in the secondary market promptly. the amount of the bank ’ s holding of government securities did not grow significantly, hence the monetary base did not, either. by contrast, we now have well - developed primary government securities markets. even after the recent earthquake, the government is able to issue its securities in the market smoothly, and the bid - to - cover ratios in the primary markets remain unchanged. although some commentators mention a sharp depreciation of the japanese exchange rate in the early 1930s, the exchange rate regime at that time was quite different. after the departure from the gold standard at the end of 1931, the yen depreciated from an overvalued level under the gold standard. by contrast, japan is on the flexible exchange rate system today. as many of you know, mr. takahashi was assassinated in 1936 by militarists when he was trying to stop ever - growing demand for military spending, and the course of events led to the eventual rampant inflation. i would argue that the introduction of the scheme of the bank ’ s underwriting of government securities itself paved the way for eventual ballooning of fiscal spending, precisely because the scheme lacked the checking process through the market mechanism. we often use the words of “ entrance ” and “ exit ” to discuss the conduct of monetary policy nowadays. in that terminology, we