Young businesses are increasingly acting as junior partners to established banks, offering customer contact. Start-ups creating innovative solutions for the interface between customer and bank are particularly well placed to reap the benefits in terms of cooperation. The new EU Payments Directive envisages action to standardise technical interfaces in response to such third-party access to accounts.
A protracted slowdown may also produce longer-lasting consequences on potential output growth. This is why I will study the implications of such a scenario in some detail. Let me repeat that this is a risk scenario.