As the Deutsche Bundesbank Executive Board member responsible for the area of payments, I have been monitoring changes in this sector since September 2018. It is clear to me that the pick-up in the pace of digitalisation is caused by demand as well as supply factors. So I’ll begin my remarks by discussing changes in user and payment behaviour.
Afterwards, I’ll address the challenge posed by new players in the payments space. I would then like to outline my thoughts on how we should react to the new challenges. These thoughts can be summarised under one key heading: updating existing payment systems, for example via instant payments, and also central bank digital currency (CBDC).