Although the Bank’s monetary policy measures were often criticized – especially abroad – as being “too little, too late,” the Bank did in fact adopt a variety of unconventional monetary policy measures from the late 1990s onward (Chart 3).
I’d also like to say a few words on interchange fees, the issue of this workshop. Why are retail payments important? Payments oil the wheels of the single market. They facilitate the “four freedoms”– the free movement of people, goods, services and capital. Without an efficient electronic payment system, the Union would not have been able to develop and grow over the years.