Keynote speech by Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Bundesbank Symposium on the Future of Payments

Frankfurt am Main, 7 October 2024

The foundations of the financial system as we know it today can be traced back to 14th-century Italy,^[1] when double-entry bookkeeping^[2] was introduced, along with nostro and vostro accounts^[3] to facilitate the settlement of foreign trades across separate, independent ledgers^[4].

Although today’s financial markets are highly complex and sophisticated, the fundamental practice of bookkeeping across ledgers has remained largely unchanged and continues to exert a significant influence on existing market structures. For example, at each stage of the securities life cycle, banks, brokers, information providers and other market participants play an essential role in intermediation. This complexity comes at a cost: research shows that on the whole, financial intermediation costs in advanced economies have increased since…