First, the financial service industry can be regarded as “information industry,” since financial services such as payment and settlement, investment decisions and risk management are based on wide-ranging information processing. Second, some of recent inventions in information technology such as blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) have the potential to significantly affect “money” and “ledgers,” which are the basic infrastructure for financial activities.
Finally, I would also like to mention that financial integration is relevant for our task – as provided for by the Treaty – of contributing to the safeguarding of financial stability. 2 Financial system stability requires the financial system’s principal components to be jointly capable of absorbing adverse disturbances.