Efforts have been made to modernise clearing and payment through MICR based cheque clearing, Electronic Clearing Services and Funds Transfer (ECS and EFT) and the Centralised Funds Management System. For the traditional paper-based cheque systems, introduction of cheque truncation and imaging of cheques is envisaged to reduce the time lags in realisation of cheques.
With the three-year refinancing operations decided in December 2011 the Governing Council of the ECB countered the consequences of the fragmentation and prevented a much worse contraction in credit than actually occurred. In emergency conditions and with a good deal of uncertainty, national and European policies have nonetheless moved in the right direction overall.