Inflation is still negative and even below earlier projections. Unlike developed countries, Chile is entering this recovery phase with a strong financial system. Our banking system has, on average, similar or better solvency levels than it had in the years leading to the external financial crisis. This should allow the financing of investment and consumption during the economic recovery phase. Meanwhile, the market for bonds and commercial paper has become ever more important as a source of funding for larger firms. Risks remain, however, and the return to sustained growth in Chile and the world is not a done deal. In particular, macroeconomic packages need to be continued until the recovery is well established. Emerging economies and commodity exporters deal with their own tensions. Most recently, these have centered on the appreciation of their currencies, largely dependent on the US dollar. In Chile, with a floating exchange rate system, the peso is not spared the effects of the world events. Certainly, we will have to continue monitoring the exchange rate very closely. In particular, we will have to figure out its policy implications in order to ensure a persistent closing of the output gap and the return of inflation to the target. We foresee, as stated in the Monetary Policy Report, that the MPR will be kept low for an extended period, to reduce pressures on the strength of the peso and open the way for a sustained recovery of private demand.
Indeed, central bank money is the cornerstone of settlements between financial intermediaries and has every reason to remain so in the future: experience shows that financial players need a risk-free settlement asset. However, with the development of the tokenisation of financial assets, would it be advisable to tokenise their counterpart, the settlement currency? Doing this may lead to changes not in what constitutes the very foundation of central bank money – confidence – but in the way it is issued. It is in this context that the opportunity for a “wholesale” central bank  digital currency could arise. This requires central banks to invest in the technical innovations underpinning the digitisation of financial assets and their transfer methods, to conduct experiments and take advantage of them in order to improve the performance of the services they provide to the economy. And that is what the Banque de France is doing. With the support of its Lab, it has been investing in blockchain technology for several years now, and is implementing it on an operational level with its MADRE project for 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  managing the databases for SEPA creditor identifiers and bank branches. Another recent example is the ECB’s launch of the TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS), with the aim of ensuring the coordinated development of instant payments.