Households have been worried about their savings, jobs, earning power and their homes; companies have been concerned about the availability of credit, the health of their suppliers, the viability of their markets and the prospects for their investments. Uncertainty has reduced confidence, dampened spending, and slowed growth. As a result the UK has endured its weakest recovery on record. Comparisons with other countries throw that fact into sharper relief. Over the past five years Germany has grown by 2%, the US by 5%, Australia by 13% and China by more than 50%. Meanwhile the UK economy still produces 3% less than it did five years ago. The real cost of this poor performance is that around a million more people are unemployed than before the recession. Capacity has lain idle in firms and opportunities have gone wanting for lack of finance and confidence. It will take a period of robust growth to begin to reduce meaningfully this spare capacity in the labour market and in companies. The Bank of England’s task now is to secure the fledgling recovery, to allow it to develop into a period of sustained and robust growth. We aim to get there in part by reducing the uncertainty that has held back growth. And we are using our full suite of policy tools to help rebuild confidence so that we all can move forward in a sustainable manner. First, we are giving confidence that interest rates won’t go up until jobs, incomes and spending are recovering at a sustainable pace.
In the European context, our colleagues from De Nederlandshe Bank and Banco de Portugal, Mr Michiel van Doeveren, Mr Rui Pimentel, Mr Carlo Winder and Mr Richard Derksen will provide relevant information about the ongoing changes in payment systems and services in Europe. Thus, a discussion will be developed about the three main pillars of the Strategic Vision 2020 of the Eurosystem: achieving a consolidated Eurosystem market infrastructure by bringing the two infrastructures TARGET 2 and T2S closer together, harmonization of its own collateralization techniques and procedures and development of pan-European instant payment services. In addition, the latest developments in the legal spectrum regulating payments at European level, with special emphasis on PSD2 Directive, will be elaborated. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Also, significant attention will be paid on developments in safe and secure payment services as well as the conceptual and practical issues regarding the oversight on FMIs. On the national level, our efforts are focused on the harmonization of the Macedonian legislation with the EU regulation. The new Law on payment services and systems and related bylaws will implement PSD and part of the provisions from PSD2, Settlement Finality Directive and E-money Directive. Thus, a panel discussion is scheduled where esteemed representatives from the payment service providers, NBRM and experts from Slovenia, Mr Peter Centrih and Bulgarian expert, Mr Antonio Barzashki will elaborate the new package of Macedonian legislative on payments.