Many banks were closed on 1 January and an enthusiastic general public wanted to get hold of the new cash as quickly as possible, preferably on New Year's Eve. This meant that there was tremendous pressure on converting the ATMs to euro as quickly as possible at the end of the year, which the banks succeeded in achieving. On 2 January, 91 per cent of the ATMs in the euro area had been converted to euro, and it took only a couple more days until they all worked with  BIS Review 23/2002  1  euro banknotes. Many countries also distributed lower denomination banknotes (five and ten euro) via the ATMs to facilitate change for retailers. Despite this, and despite the advance distribution of coins, there arose a shortage of coins and of five-euro banknotes in a few places, although the system worked well on the whole. With regard to other types of machines, it has been reported that, for instance petrol machines could not accept euro banknotes at first. However, this is being overcome. The changeover to the euro was done in different ways in different countries. Naturally, help was required from all those who handle cash, and despite this there were long queues in many places. However, the customers seem to have accepted this with relative equanimity, perhaps because it was a holiday period and many had vacation at that point in time. The situation improved rapidly in the retail trade, but it took a little longer in the banks.
There was a net increase of about 6,900 jobs in financial services and FinTech in 2018, driven mainly by the banking and insurance industries.2 Over the last three years (2016–18), we saw an average of 4,900 financial services and FinTech jobs created on a net basis per year. This is above our ITM target of 4,000 net jobs growth in financial services and FinTech. 9 / 11  BIS central bankers' speeches  Hiring in the financial sector remains healthy so far this year and job growth is on track to meet the ITM target of 4,000. Sustaining this rate of job growth will not be easy in the face of technological change unless efforts are continually stepped up to upskill the workforce. As digitalisation and automation become more pervasive in the financial industry, jobs will be transformed. Some will inevitably be displaced. MAS, the financial industry, and our tripartite partners are taking this very seriously and undertaking a variety of measures to help prepare the financial sector workforce for a digital future. Last year, more than 20,000 individuals – or about one out of eight workers in the industry – went through MAS/IBF-supported upskilling programmes. Nineteen financial institutions have stepped forward and committed to re-skill close to 4,000 finance professionals and redeploy them in new or expanded roles over the next two years. Some 1,700 of them have already started this journey, and 800 have successfully transited into new roles. CONCLUSION Let me wrap up.