The holy grail of cross-border payments is a solution allowing cross-border payments to be immediate, cheap, universal, and settled in a secure settlement medium. The search for such a solution is as old as international commerce and the implied need to pay. This paper describes current visions...

Payments and financial market infrastructures are vital components of modern economies, yet they have often been overlooked by economists. However, any economic exchange, including financial market transactions, is matched by a payment leg, and the safety, efficiency, and immediacy of the...

National Central Banks (NCBs) of the Eurosystem pool profits and losses related to monetary policy operations to form the Eurosystem's so-called 'monetary income'. This is then redistributed - i.e. allocated - among NCBs according to respective capital keys (the participation shares of each NCB...