Euroclear Bank, with over 300,000 securities in 2011 and holds clients’ assets valued at EUR 10.8 trillion, provides a huge reservoir to support cross-border cross-currency collateralised lending. Its large investor base will also provide a powerful platform for global investors to access the markets in Hong Kong and Malaysia. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Bank Negara Malaysia and Euroclear for sharing our vision and working with us to bring it to fruition. The platform will offer a wide range of services to global and domestic investors. These services include a global securities database containing information of international and domestic securities, provision of a single point of entry to allow investors to buy and hold international and domestic bonds through their accounts of the local system, cross-border issuance and settlement of bonds in foreign currencies on a delivery-versus-payment basis, provision of an effective and efficient channel for cross-border cross-currency collateralised lending and borrowing between financial institutions, and automation and standardisation of the corporate action processing such as interest payments and redemption, distribution of corporate action notices, and exercise of custody instructions. My colleague Esmond will explain these arrangements in greater details shortly. Finally, I would like to stress that the Pilot Platform to be launched is meant to be inclusive, not exclusive, and we welcome the participation of more parties. The benefits in promoting bond market development and financial stability can only increase with more bond investment and settlement systems in the region joining as partners.
As the e-krona is something new, it will take time to analyse and perhaps develop such an alternative. This work must therefore be initiated in  The Riksbank sent out a consultation over joining TIPS on 5 June 2018. See Consultation on instant payments and the Riksbank's role in the payment infrastructure. www.riksbank.se. 4  2 [8]  good time, before cash usage has declined to such a point that cash is no longer a generally accepted means of payment in Sweden. The Riksbank's e-krona project: results and the way forward In my speech, I introduced the discussion of the e-krona by asking whether the Riksbank should adapt the money we issue to the modern, digital economy. I emphasised then that the e-krona should be seen as a complement to cash, which was in the process of becoming marginalised. I also pointed out the need of working in parallel in three areas: investigating the technical possibilities, analysing the consequences for, among other things, monetary policy, and reviewing the legal issues to which a possible e-krona would give rise. After two years, I can say that we have come quite far within all of these areas, but also that we still have some way to go until we reach our goal. We have discovered that it would be possible to develop an e-krona using existing technology, but we will have to start constructing and testing a finished product to learn more and to establish different alternatives for the Riksbank in the future.