For the euro area, the evidence from several recent papers points to a steepening in recent years (see e.g. Oinonen and Paloviita (2014), Riggi and Venditti (2015) and Foroni and Porqueddu (2015)).
We are also examining the possibilities of interlinking blockchain-based solutions with conventional payment systems – like our real-time gross settlement system: TARGET2. There could be a technical connection between a smart contract and TARGET2, where the smart contract initiates or rather triggers a payment in TARGET2. Which is why we call such a connection a “trigger-solution”.