Our deliberations centred on the three areas we said we would be watching closely: how supply challenges are resolving, how higher interest rates are slowing demand, and how inflation and inflation expectations are evolving. I would like to thank Mikael Khan and Daniel de Munnik for their help in preparing this speech.
Participants in this market segment continue to trade preferentially with national counterparts and a significant share of the transactions are secured by national collateral. According to  BIS Review 6/2004  1  our data at the ECB, about 40% of all cash lending and borrowing against securities is conducted exclusively at the national level.