* * * This panel will focus on the settlement infrastructure for U.S. government securities—a vital component of the Treasury market and one that is undergoing an important transition. This segment of the industry has been in a period of slow but steady consolidation for several decades now.
It is also about the monetary policy of those countries which are not part of one of the three poles but which have to define their relationship to these three poles somehow. As regards the European countries, some of them are reassessing their positions towards the monetary union or are making considerable progress in the convergence process.