In France an important contribution comes from the “Observatory for payment cards security”, which I have the pleasure to chair. Its recommendations have facilitated the recognition by stakeholders, who are all represented in the Observatory, of the importance of strong customer authentication for Internet payments and facilitated its wide adoption. This has significantly contributed to limit the impact on fraud rates, at least for national payments, and it has helped foster the dramatic expansion of e-commerce that we currently see. But beyond the development of card payments via the Internet, other innovations such as mobile and contactless payments or online banking services also raise important issues. These issues notably include the protection of sensitive payment data. To address them, the Banque de France has been working with the banking community, which translated into an agreement in 2011 to promote the protection of bank account identifiers and card numbers. This issue of protection of sensitive data appears all the more important to address that we  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  witness the entry of newcomers in the payment chain like third party payment services providers, who may contribute positively to foster innovation and potentially competition in the retail payments market but whose modus operandi should not lead to lower the current security level of online banking services. What lessons can we draw from that experience to promote best practices in the field of security for retail payments on a larger scale?
Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell: Beyond the turmoil – rules, supervision and infrastructures Speech by Ms Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the opening panel at the SPIN 2009 Conference, Rome, 15 June 2009. *  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a great pleasure for me to participate in the opening discussion at this conference. The organisers, in choosing the title of the panel, have given us the challenging task to look beyond the current turmoil surrounding rules, supervision and infrastructures. This is certainly not easy as we cannot yet speak of an end to the difficult period facing both the financial and real sectors of the economy. However, looking beyond the turmoil and start implementing the lessons we have learned is exactly what is needed at this point in time. Against the background of the crisis up until now, we have to draw the right conclusions and begin designing the future of the financial architecture, including new rules and improved supervision and oversight. This needs to be done now before the window of opportunity – which will not remain open forever – closes. However, before looking beyond the turmoil let me take the opportunity first to examine the performance of market infrastructures in the current crisis. Developments in the financial markets and the fate of specific institutions have been at the heart of the public debate.