Ivan Iskrov: Bulgaria and the Francophonian movement Speech by Mr Ivan Iskrov, Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, at the opening of the 13th Annual Meeting of the Governors of the Central Banks from the Francophonian countries, Sofia, 12 May 2006. *  *  *  Dear Governors, Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Bulgaria, one of the oldest countries in Europe! It is a pleasure and honour for me to open the 13th Meeting of the Governors of the Central Banks from the Francophonian countries. I am also very much flattered by the fact that this meeting is for the first time held in a country from Central and Eastern Europe and it is precisely the Bulgarian National Bank's privilege to host such an event. This is also the year of the centennial anniversary of the birth of Leopold Cedar Senghor - the founder of the Intergovernmental Francophone Agency and the conceptual father of the Francophone Movement (La Francophonie). Tomorrow, the conceptual father of our gatherings and ECB honourable President, Jean-Claude Trichet, will join us. The fact that the BNB hosts this meeting is not only the result of the formal acceptance of Bulgaria to the Francophonian community in the early 90-ies of the past century. The French language and culture made their way into the country already in the first half of the XIX century when we were still part of the Ottoman empire.
One is a decision to “not do” and the other is decision to “do”. The first is the “not do”. We decided in the early 1990s not to implicitly subsidize cash anymore by storing it all over the country and allowing for overnight deposits. It took some time to implement this strategy. But as of a few years back, the Riksbank only has one cash depot in the entire country. It is the market’s responsibility to store and transport cash, hence those costs are now borne by the market. The second is a “do”. A few years back, we engaged in a dialogue with a consortium of banks and the Swedish clearing house on how a fast payment system available 24/7 could be created. For a payment system to be safe, you want to assure an eventual settlement over the central bank’s  2 [4]  books that is in central bank money. This can normally only be done when the central bank’s payment system is open. After some thinking, we found a way to connect the instant payment system with the Riksbank’s system and by allowing ring-fenced overnight balances for this purpose - or to put it differently by extending a secured credit overnight - we managed to construct a scheme where the fast payments are backed by central bank money even when our system is closed. The result?