In respect of the safety and efficiency in the movement of money, we built almost five years ago a state-of-the-art Real Time Gross Settlement system for the full range of Hong Kong dollar financial transactions. This RTGS system has a seamless interface with our debt clearing system – the first of its kind in Asia. We have just replicated that payment system for the US dollar, enabling US dollar transactions to be settled real time in our time zone rather than having to wait for New York to open. The US dollar payment system is also linked up with the Hong Kong dollar payment system and in September this year we achieved the first payment versus payment (PvP) transaction in world financial history between two different currencies. This arrangement makes it possible for Herstatt risk – the risk that money might get lost during transactions between different time zones – to be eliminated. If payment systems for other currencies in this region are also linked up with our US dollar payment system, then most foreign currency transactions involving the US dollar conducted in this region can benefit from this risk reduction service. There is a standing invitation from us to central banks in the region running real time payment systems for their currencies. I hope they will take up this offer.
23.10.2019  The Banking Union: a key building block of the EU project Opening remarks at roundtable “Banking Union – Five years in the making” Banco de España Margarita Delgado Deputy Governor  Dear chairs of the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the European Banking Authority, president of the European Banking Federation, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Let me start by welcoming you to Banco de España for this roundtable. Over the next couple of hours we intend to discuss both the achievements and pending elements of the Banking Union (BU) on its fifth anniversary. We are honoured to be accompanied by such distinguished panelists, so thank you for accepting our invitation and for being here today. But before getting down to the discussion, I would like to share with you a few general thoughts on the European Union project and the role the Banking Union (BU) plays as part of this collective endeavour. In my remarks today I will point out what the BU has meant in terms of greater integration for the euro area banking sector, and I will also refer briefly to those developments that, in my view, may still be missing if we are to achieve a truly integrated and cross-border banking sector. The EU project has certainly improved the life of millions of people in Europe since its creation, not only in economic terms, but also regarding rights and living standards across the whole Union.