You are well aware that we at the ECB’s Governing Council will decide this autumn on the re-calibration of our policy instruments beyond the end of the year – and, to quote Mario Draghi, “probably the bulk of these decisions will be taken in October”. We are now faced with a simple requirement, in line with our mandate to maintain price stability, and the progress towards our inflation  Page 4 sur 8 target: we have to reduce the intensity of our net asset purchases, while maintaining overall a substantially accommodative monetary policy. As regards our asset purchases, we have to reduce their intensity in a pragmatic manner, as we already decided successfully in December 2016. “Pragmatic” because, while keeping the current rules – we shouldn’t change any of the parameters, including the issuer and issue limits –, we can on the one hand exploit the margins of flexibility of the programme and we must on the other hand hold in reserve an additional purchasing capacity – if needed. So, there is no reason to be worried by the prospect of an adequate reduction of our net purchases, which would be perfectly compatible with maintaining a substantial degree of monetary accommodation. Indeed, QE is not limited to net asset purchases, and monetary policy is not limited to QE. Our monetary policy is based on a set of instruments [slide]: it is not a solo, but a quartet.
Average prices (weighted by transaction)  2001 NOK 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0  Weighted average price giro transactions  Weighted average price all transactions  94  95  96  97  98  99  00  8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0  01  For most services, customer prices are lower than banks’ unit costs. The exception is giro services at the counter. The unit cost for EFTPOS has declined so that transaction prices nearly covered costs in 2001. Prices have fallen because the transaction volume has increased and costs related to developing and introducing the system have been repaid. The price for using a card in a POS terminal has not risen appreciably in recent years. The unit cost for paying bills over the Internet is still high. This is probably because development and introduction costs are still not repaid and because there is excess capacity in the banks' solutions. Customer prices cover less than one-fourth of the costs reported by banks in connection with this service. It appears that banks are pricing this service on the basis of a long-term strategy that low prices during the introduction phase will encourage customers to use new, more efficient payment instruments earlier. If the pricing strategy actually increases use, it may contribute to increasing efficiency in the payment system in the long term because economies of scale will be exploited at an early stage.