The Governing Council also agreed upon a guideline for the management of the foreign exchange assets by the national central banks and for the Member States’ transactions with their foreign exchange working balances. These are now being formalised in official legal documentation. (c) Statistics The Governing Council endorsed the statistical framework on the basis of a number of reports that had been prepared by the EMI - many of which had been published in the past - thereby confirming the ECB’s statistical requirements for Stage Three. I should perhaps point out that the reporting framework for the money and banking statistics of the ECB will appear in the “General Documentation” that will be released next Wednesday. (d) Euro banknotes With regard to the euro banknotes, the Governing Council confirmed (in line with previous recommendations by the EMI) that seven banknote denominations would be issued: 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500. Furthermore, it decided that there would not be any national features on the euro banknotes. As you know, the euro banknotes will be put into circulation on 1 January 2002. Thus there are fewer than 800 working days to go before their launch. The Governing Council took note that the technical preparations for the euro banknotes are proceeding according to schedule. The origination phase (i.e. the process of converting the designs into proof-prints) has now been successfully concluded and a zero-production run will be conducted in the autumn before mass production starts in early 1999.
In fact, at end-2021 a third of the banks under our direct supervision did not meet their internal targets for gender representation at board level. But, as I said, it is not just a matter of gender. The board of directors needs to have the appropriate knowledge diversity to be able to deal with the challenges facing the financial industry. I am thinking, for example, of digitalisation strategies and climate risks. This does not mean that members need to be experts on these topics, but they do need to have sufficient knowledge to understand these challenges in order to make sound decisions. At the end of 2021, only around a fifth of the largest euro area banks had sufficient IT expertise at board level. Increasing this ratio will be key if banks are to successfully navigate the digital era.1 Second, the involvement of board members is crucial. Members should exercise their duties responsibly and uphold professional standards. They should devote sufficient time to reading and understanding all the documentation in order to be well-prepared for their meetings. They should also have the opportunity to seek clarification in advance, if necessary, to ensure that they have sufficient knowledge to support or challenge decisions. Finally, as I mentioned earlier, independence is of course essential. Institutions should have a sufficient number of independent directors to contribute to decision-making in an objective manner and to ensure a neutral attitude within the board.