BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  3.1  The digital single market  Ladies and gentlemen, economic textbooks are in complete agreement on what drives productivity: technological progress. In recent years, technological progress has been heavily influenced by IT. As is so often the case, economists cannot quite agree on the scale of the contribution made by digital technologies.
But what they do agree on is that it is considerable.3, 4 However, the European markets for digital applications remain heavily fragmented, especially with respect to legal issues such as protection of privacy, contents and copyright. The liability of online intermediaries, electronic payments and electronic contracts are also regulated differently.