Thus, the Flash Eurozone PMI Composite Output Index rose slightly (1 percentage point (pp)) to 48.8 in February, remaining in recession territory over the last four months4. The European Commission’s consumer confidence indicator has also contracted since the beginning of the year. Despite the extraordinarily positive news of the availability of the vaccines and the roll-out of the vaccination campaigns since end-2020, the crisis is expected to be highly persistent. Under the baseline scenario of the Eurosystem’s latest projections, published in December and updated next week, the euro area economy would not regain its pre-crisis GDP level until 2022 Q2, when it would still be 3.7% below the level projected for that quarter before the crisis.5  4  In February, the Services PMI improved by a modest 0.3 pp to 45.7, much less than the Manufacturing PMI, which increased by 3.1 pp and remains in the expansionary zone at 57.9. 5  Under this baseline scenario, euro area GDP was projected to shrink by 7.3% in 2020 then grow by 3.9% in 2021, one point less than projected in September. Drawing on the preliminary estimate of the euro area National Accounts, GDP ultimately appears to have decreased by 6.8% year-on-year in 2020, somewhat less than expected. 5  As regards the euro area’s inflation outlook, the ECB projected a slight recovery for 2021, increasing from 0.2% in 2020 — it ultimately rose by 0.3% — to 1%. This recovery would continue in 2022 and 2023 (to 1.1% and 1.4%, respectively).
The process allows new products to be developed with a careful risk management which will improve customer satisfaction and reduce regulatory burden. At the moment, many new technology projects have been tested in the regulatory sandbox including blockchain, biometric and QR Code payment. - Enacting Payment Systems Act for governing payment businesses: The law is initiated by BOT and Ministry of Finance with the objective to effectively oversee the fastchanging payment systems in this advanced digital technology period. The BOT oversight function will be more flexible and modern, support innovations, in line with international standard as well as promote security and customer protection. The law has been recently approved by the National Legislative Assembly, and is in a process to enforce. The above projects will support financial inclusion of all sectors and enhance Thailand’s financial infrastructure to be more efficient and safe, reduce costs of stakeholders, and support further innovations. Today, I would like to talk about the development and implementation of the QR Code standard, which is an important collaboration between Thai and foreign service providers that can assist the previous developments. The QR Code standard has four major principles and benefits. The first one is being consistent with international standards. This is the first time that five global payment card network providers and Thai payment service providers have worked together to use standardized QR Code.