Europe's high pre-existing level of financial development can partly account for the relatively smaller reach of fintech payment and lending activities compared to some other regions. But fintech activity is growing rapidly. Digital payment schemes are expanding within countries, although...

I explain the meaning of an interoperable payment system and why interoperability is crucial for efficiency. I review some alternative approaches to interoperability, including central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), hybrid CBDCs, and two-ledger upgrades of bank-based payment systems

We propose a dynamic theory of banking where deposits play the role of productive capital as in the classical Q-theory of investment for non-financial firms. A key conceptual innovation of our theory is that the stock of deposits cannot be perfectly controlled by the bank. Demand deposit...

The incorporation of new technologies to financial activities implies challenges and opportunities to financial authorities. They are reacting to the unavoidable trend towards digitalization of financial activities with the objective of preserving stable and efficient payment and financial...

As a result of technological advancements, instant delivery of digital services has become the norm in today's society. Yet, until recently, this trend did not extend to retail payment services, which normally took one or up to a few working days from the end user's perspective. Following...

Recently, Fuest and Sinn (2018) have demanded a change of rules for the Eurozone's Target 2 payment system, claiming it would violate the Statutes of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank. The authors present a stylized model based on a set of macro-economic...