14 It offers a conducive physical space dedicated to the infrastructural needs of FinTech startups, here in the heart of Singapore’s financial district. It reduces costs for start-ups, gives them convenient access to data centre and other services, and even has a nursing room. 15 Let me cite two FinTechs starting up residence here in LATTICE80: Percipient, a local start-up, has successfully developed a customised digital solution for the State Bank of India. Percipient’s big data technology allows for efficient management of the bank’s database of over 500 million accounts, and translating into large potential cost savings. Sparks Systems builds new generation trading platforms for hedge funds, banks, financial institutions and other high volume institutional participants in the foreign exchange market. It aims is to develop an efficient market place for emerging market FX. 16 This innovation village also promotes collaboration and co-creation. Even in an age of Tweets and Snapchats, face-to-face interaction remains a source of new ideas, and a way to suss out potential partners. 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  R3 LRC, a specialist in distributed ledger research supported by a consortium of more than 70 financial institutions, will set up its first physical presence here. R3 Asia Lab will promote the cross-pollination of ideas between Singapore FinTechs and leading technologists around the world. The Fintech Association Singapore, another resident here, is a cross-industry initiative to facilitate collaboration among all stakeholders in the FinTech ecosystem.
In the presidential election campaign, both the conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and the socialist Ségolène Royal argued that the ECB should, for example, do more to support economic growth. I will only remind you that, by the will of the French democracy, the Banque de France was made independent from French politics before the establishment of the ECB, with a primary mandate for price stability. To allow the central bank to become independent, both chambers of the French parliament changed the constitution of General de Gaulle with a three-fifths majority. It rather looks like people in your home country have forgotten that. BIS Review 18/2007  1  Certainly not the people, who, according to surveys, are firm supporters of our independence. In any case, the Maastricht Treaty calls for the full independence of the central bank. Under the Treaty, governments are not even allowed to try to influence the ECB. Nevertheless, would it not be better for the ECB to be a little more flexible and – like the Federal Reserve – react more strongly to the needs of the economy as a whole? Our mandate is unambiguous. Our primary objective is price stability. And price stability is a necessary condition for sustainable economic growth and job creation. The central banks of nearly all industrialised and emerging countries have policies based around the combating of inflation, and that is precisely what our fellow citizens want.