 Good afternoon everyone and my fellow panel members and and greetings to the audience as well. I was told that we can start today's discussion. And there are topics that inevitably make their way into a legal conference these days and central bank digital currencies is certainly a topic that was expected to feature on the agenda. And as you recall, two years ago in the digital conference we had already covered CBDC, but as one would expect back then we dealt with more like basic issues trying to understand the instrument the objectives, the legal basis, the more fundamental issues. And in the meantime, as you're probably aware, a lot of progress have been has been made in the field central banks around the world are working on their digital currencies. The euro system and the ECB is also very active with the proprietary work, even if more with internal preparation than with the press releases or reports these days, but certainly a lot of a lot of field was covered in the legal field. So, in a way, as a reflection of this more mature, more advanced topic is the subject of today's conversation, which is the interoperability of central bank digital currencies, I how we can fit this new species into the international payment ecosystem. And we, and it just shows that it's already a topic that is more advanced that would really be relevant in the design stage. We're already thinking of the actual application of the of the instrument. And today we have exactly the right panel to tackle this important and very technical topic. I realize that it's in the job description job description of every panel chair to be enthusiastic about the panel members. But today I have the luxury to be very genuinely impressed and enthusiastic about our panel, who really just, you know, has the relevant experts, policymakers and academics with the relevant exposure in the field that could help us walk through all these difficulties and in fact, all the panel members are actually in the position as well to shape the agenda going forward. So it's not only a theoretical discussion we're having today. The first speaker is Ross Leco, who is currently serving as the acting head of the innovation hub at the BIS, which is very interesting and an impressive assignment and and Ross also had already a distinguished career before, among other having been the deputy general of the IMF. And I recall that in the stormy days of the soaring depth crisis we also had interaction in that capacity. Now, even though the times are not less stormy, we had a different problem or issues to deal with. Then our second speaker is Jess Chang, who is a senior councillor at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where she specializes in a wide range of payment system issues, including central and digital currency as well. And intriguingly, Jess was general deputy general councillor triple, a well known leading field tech from from San Francisco, dealing with all sorts of the issues that would also certainly come handy with today's topic as well. Then, Jess is followed by my colleague Panos, Panos Papascalis, who is currently a senior lead legal councillor at the ECB's legal services, having been previously with the IMF and ESMA as well. And he's one of the leading experts in the field of CVDC at the ECB and also in the euro system in fact, and he's absolutely instrumental with the legal preparations of the digital euro, so very pleased to have him as well on the panel. And finally, we need to have a distinguished academic as well and Professor Grunewald, in the form of Serena Grunewald, we have this person and Serena is a full professor at the University of Mimichel, dealing with financial and compartmental issues. And we also read it with very much interest, his comprehensive work on the digital euro, I believe it was two years ago, so certainly well qualified to attack. With the panel, we came up with the following plan to deal with the matter. Our first speaker Ross would deal with the conceptual setup and defining the main issues and concepts and giving global overview of the efforts to tackle interoperability. And then the second two interventions will be more regional focus, so to say, chess will cover the US issues, and if I understand correctly, focusing on interoperability between CVDC and cash and other instruments in the domestic and namely US context, whilst PANOS will in turn focus on the euro area and tries to tackle the issue from the point of view of cross currency, cross border, interoperability. And finally, Serena will have the noble task of identifying the conclusions of this panel and to identify the next steps, how we can already actually prepare. So, without further ado, then I would pass on the word to our first speaker Ross. Thank you Ross. Thank you very much, Otto, and let me begin by saying what a great pleasure it is for me to participate in this panel with such distinguished colleagues and friends. I'd like to thank you, PANOS, Chiara and the ECB for inviting me to participate. As you mentioned, what I'm going to do in my presentation is to talk about interoperability at the cross border level. And to take a slightly broader perspective to look at how CVDC can enhance cross border making of cross border payments through interoperability and through some other techniques. I'm going to start with an overview of some of the key concepts and definitions. I will then look at how interoperability and different techniques can actually enhance the making of cross border payments using CVDC. And then we'll discuss briefly the international framework for the making of cross border payments and transfers and how CVDC might fit into it. I'd then like to briefly go through some of the actual experimentation that's being done at the international level to make interoperability a reality in a cross border setting with particular reference to the work of the BIS Innovation Hub that I currently head. So, against that background, let's perhaps launch into the next slide. Before we talk about interoperability and how CVDC can enhance cross border payments, we should remember why we're having this discussion. I think we all realize that the making of cross border payments, the current framework using correspondent banking relationships is slow, inefficient, expensive and opaque. And it's for this reason that the G20 called upon the FSB and a number of international stakeholders, including the BIS and its Innovation Hub, to look at how these pain points could be addressed through a roadmap of actions called the G20 Roadmap for enhancing cross border payments. Building block 19 of that roadmap, which we at the Innovation Hub co-lead, looks at how CVDC can actually make cross border payments better, cheaper and more efficient. Moving to the next slide. Against that background, I think it's useful to look at some of the key concepts that we will be exploring today in our discussion. First of all, I think we all know what a central bank digital currency is at this point, the basically a form of central bank money and digital format, best denominated in the unit of account of the jurisdiction that is a direct liability of the central bank. And our discussion will really focus on two different types of CVDC, retail intended for general purpose use by households and businesses, and wholesale CVDC designated for access by financial institutions for certain specified purposes. The concept of interoperability itself, whether in a domestic or a cross border context, I think can be explained as a technical operation on legal compatibility between systems that enables one system to be used in conjunction with another system. It can involve some of the technical features, the technology underlying the systems, the semantic compatibility, meaning the language and data formats that these two systems use, and finally the business and legal rules governing the operation of the two systems. Moving to the next slide. When discussing how CVDC can be used to enhance the making of cross border payments, some techniques involve interoperability and others don't. I'd like to briefly touch on the other techniques, but essentially in either a wholesale or retail context, it involves a CVDC system allowing access to the system by non-residents. In a retail context, this can involve the central bank or the operator of the system, allowing non-resident individuals or small businesses to hold wallets in the jurisdiction of issuance to hold CVDC and to use it for payments with residents and non-residents and possibly non-residents. Access can be allowed for limited period, for example, tourists or indefinitely. In a wholesale context, it involves allowing non-resident payment service providers access to a wholesale CVDC issued by the jurisdiction for use with designated users in that jurisdiction, whether it be resident or non-resident. But this is only one technique. I think the other technique, which I'd like to talk about, involves ensuring interoperability between different CVDC systems. If we go to the next slide, I'd like to focus on two basic techniques of interoperability. The first interlinks different CVDC systems located in different jurisdictions. This can involve different approaches, perhaps at what we call a single access point where one of the two jurisdictions as a payment service provider that serves basically as a gateway through which providers in the two jurisdictions can transact with each other and interact with each other. It can involve bilateral links where payment service providers in the two jurisdictions are each allowed to hold CVDC in the other jurisdictions supported by relevant rules and regulations that will permit transactions to take place between the two jurisdictions. Or it can involve a hub and spoke model where an intermediary that stands outside the various systems in between them either bilaterally or involving multiple systems serves as a gateway that links together all these different CVDC systems and allows them to transact with each other. The second basic model, which I'm going to talk about in concrete terms a little bit later in the context of the work of the Innovation Hub involves a single system where you create essentially a single distributed ledger platform in which multiple central banks each issue their own wholesale CVDC onto the platform. And the CVDC can be traded between the central banks and large financial institutions to settle cross-border payments without having to use the correspondent banking system. And as I'll explain in a few minutes, experimentations using this model have been extremely promising in ensuring relatively rapid cross-border settlements at minimal cost. So turning to the next slide, those are the basic cross-border models for ensuring interoperability between various CVDC systems. I should also note that they can link together other payment systems that do not involve CVDC. So against that background, if we look at the current international legal framework for cross-border payments, I think it's important to remember first of all that there is a legal framework that governs cross-border payments in more traditional forms, particularly through the banking system. It's a collection of multilateral and bilateral treaties at the multilateral level, the Articles of Agreement at the IMF, but of course many important regional treaties like those underlying the European Union with its rules on capital movements, for example, but also a network, a complex network of bilateral treaties. And I think it's important to note that to the extent that a CVDC is to be considered a form of currency, it may, as these systems emerge, fall within either this framework or rules or another framework that will need to be developed. But I think there are two important considerations underlying the current system of rules. I think they generally recognize that the global economy is better served if payments and transfers for current and some types of capital transactions can move freely across national borders. But they also recognize that limitations to the free movement may be appropriate and necessary in certain circumstances, in particular to ensure the stability of countries' economies and financial systems. We can go to the next slide, please. But there is, I think, an important element that perhaps isn't referred to in these rules, but has been referred to increasingly in some of the work that's being done at the international level on the development of CVDC, and it's do no harm. And in a domestic context, this essentially means that the introduction of a CVDC should be accomplished in a way that does not compromise important public policy objectives, such as the effect of conduct, a monetary policy, or the preservation of financial stability. But I think that rule can also apply in the international context, at least in my personal view. I think it can be understood to mean that when a jurisdiction introduces its own CVDC, it should have regard to the international implications of that CVDC and its design. In particular, the potential effect on other countries' economies. To give you a concrete example, if a jurisdiction with a large important economy and a widely traded currency introduces a CVDC that's made available to nonresidents, there is a risk, for example, that residents of jurisdictions that have weak and unstable financial systems and currencies may wish to hold that CVDC. And in some circumstances, if done at scale, this may create risk of dollarization to that economy. So these types of international implications, I think, need to be thought through by jurisdictions that they consider CVDC issuance. So moving to the next slide, please. Now, moving from that international framework to some of the concrete work that's being done on interoperability at the international level, I'd like to point to some of the projects that are being done by the BIS Innovation Hub on CVDC and cross-border payments. This is a particular focus of work for the Innovation Hub. I should briefly give you a thumbnail of what the Innovation Hub is. It's something that the BIS launched in 2019. It's a platform for collaboration between central banks around the world to work on the actual building of technological products that address particular problems in the financial sector. The hub is based in Basel, but we have hub centers open in collaboration with central banks around the world in Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, London, and Stockholm. We're very happy to say very shortly we'll be opening a new Innovation Hub center in Europe with offices in Frankfurt and Paris in collaboration with the entire euro system, but of course with the UCB. But one of the focuses of our work is are the multi, the single CVDC systems that I highlighted, models I highlighted a few minutes earlier, where you create a distributed ledger platform in which multiple central banks each issue their own wholesale CVDC to be traded amongst themselves in large financial institutions to settle cross-border payments. We currently have projects ongoing or have completed projects in Switzerland, Project Jura, Singapore Project Dunbar, and Hong Kong Project Enbridge. We slipped to the next slide. These projects have all shown incredible promise in this type of model as a way of interlinking national CVDC systems and other systems and settling cross-border payments quite quickly. There are differences between these models, but they're also important similarities. They all make use of the same basic platform and they all allow non-resident access to the CVDCs that are issued on the platform. There are many differences in terms of the use cases that have been tested, the types of distributed ledger platforms we've used, and some of the other specific features, but they also show incredible promise for this approach. Moving to the next slide. It goes without saying that putting a platform like this in place with multiple central banks and access by multiple stakeholders in different jurisdictions will involve a number of important legal considerations that have to be addressed. It's safe to say, of course, that a robust legal basis is required for one of these platforms or for any financial market infrastructure for it to operate effectively. These arrangements will have to manage multiple legal and regulatory frameworks based in the different relevant jurisdictions, not only with respect to access to the platform, but things like money laundering rules, data protection frameworks, etc. And this involves complexity that will have to be managed. The changes related to the issuance and transfer of CVDCs and concepts of finality and validity of settlement will have to be resolved in particular through the development of rule books, contingency procedures, and monitoring capabilities that will help address some of these challenges. Moving to the next slide. Of course, closely related to the legal aspects will be important governance considerations. That particularly will involve the central banks that are participating in the platform. They'll have to be commonly agreed, a commonly agreed governance framework that determines rules, rights, and obligations of all parties. For example, control over the issuance and destruction of CVDC by particular central banks. And the governance arrangements underlying these platforms will include different levels of rules to balance flexibility and standardization. Rules applicable to the entire system, for example, access to the system, jurisdiction specific rules, respecting access to a particular CVDC, and rules respecting things like currency controls that I referred to a little bit earlier. Moving to the final slide. To conclude my presentation, I think it's early days with respect to the international work on the use of CVDC to enhance cross-border payments. Interoperability was certainly an important element in advancing this work, but it's only one part of the bigger picture involving other techniques. Technical work will have to, well, a great deal of technical work will have to be continued with a focus on the technology and technological design of different models. But a lot of legal work as well with respect to the rules governing cross-border payments and the design of particular models to appropriately meet the objectives of the policymakers that the policymakers assigned to them rather. And of course, an important underlying consideration will be do no harm to ensure that the issuance of CVDC and the interaction between different CVDC systems meets the policy objectives and the interests of the jurisdictions, interesting them, issuing them, but also of the system as a whole. I'll stop there. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ross, for having covered so many positive issues so clearly in such a short time. And I was fully confident that the most difficult job of the chair to keep the time I don't need to care about because we're disciplined with this. So thanks a lot. I understand that there would be questions, but we will tackle them after all the speakers spoke already. And it's now time to move to our second speaker, Jess, who would tell us about the U.S. domestic context and the cross-product issues if I understand correctly. Jess, it's for you. Thank you. I'll go, Ross, for having me here today. What I'll do for my intervention. I'll build on Ross's presentation a bit by zooming in on the domestic payment system and the concept of legal interoperability is embodied there. I should note that the views I'll express are my own, not those of the Federal Reserve system or the United States. Next slide, please. This Ross laid out, excuse me, the concept of interoperability. It includes important legal dimensions, in particular, to support operational aspects like the transferability and the convertibility for a cross-border CDDC. And as we think through the future evolution of the international framework, including the legal foundation for various cross-border CDDC arrangements, it could be useful to think through to consider how the system currently works today and why it is, how the concept of legal interoperability is already reflected in today's domestic payment system. And this is especially relevant to the important principle of do no harm, as Ross laid out, do no harm to what exactly. So I'll be turning to the US payment system to discuss these topics, just as a point of comparison, but I imagine the core concepts will probably resonate with the European system too. So today, as everyone knows the payment system, it's a public-private partnership, working in two tiers. On the central bank balance sheet, you have cash and also master account balances of banks with the Fed or the central bank. And just briefly, parties can transact in central bank liabilities of confidence in their acceptance and the lack of credit risk, as we all know. And the more parties use and transact in central bank money, the more useful it becomes. In a virtuous cycle, more parties will want to use it in more transactions, and this is known as network effects, which bring efficiencies. But as we all know, cash holdings by the general public, they are relatively small. Rather, it's deposits at private sector commercial banks that are by and large the more prevalent form of money held by the public. And in a number of ways, bank deposits could be viewed as a system of money that is separate from federal reserve notes. So when I'm using cash to pay for something, I'm using the central bank money system, so to speak. Whereas when I pay for my deposit account at a commercial bank, maybe by using my debit card, then I'm using the commercial bank money system, so to speak. And while these two forms of money deposit account balances at commercial banks and federal reserve notes, while they can be viewed as distinct systems of money subject to different legal frameworks, at the same time, they also interoperate in that both function as money to generally equal degrees in practice. And this is butchered in large part because the federal reserve by providing services to commercial banks that withdraw deposit cash indirectly helps enable each of us, the general public to convert bank deposits into cash and vice versa concept of convertibility. And I would say beyond supporting the conversion of central bank money and commercial bank money bridging these two systems, so to speak. There's another way the federal reserve that central banks play an important role in their domestic payment systems interoperability. Next slide please. You could think of deposit balances at each different bank as a separate system of money, so to speak. For example, all customers that have accounts at Citibank could be viewed as users of the Citibank system, whereas all customers have accounts at Bank of America, or users of the Bank of America system. Each bank is easily capable of executing transfers on its own books between its own customers and on us intra bank transfer. But what about this transfers between customers of different banks? Suppose a customer at Citibank wants to make a payment to a customer of Bank of America. Citibank debits the account of its customer Bank of America credits its customers account. But how do Citibank and Bank of America connect with each other? This is where the Fed or central banks play an important role. The accounts and the payment services that the Federal Reserve provides, those services help to bridge these individual bank systems and allows them to interoperate, so to speak. Citibank could pay Bank of America, in our example, through the Federal Reserve, which would typically process a transaction by receiving instructions from Citibank, delivering instructions to Bank of America, and settling the amount of a transaction by effecting changes to the bank's master account balances, credits and debits over the Fed wire fund service. So one way to think about how the payment system operates today is that it essentially operates in a series of isolated networks. Banks operate their own individualized networks with their own customers with systems like the Fed system as hubs that link them all together. Next slide, please. So it's no insignificant matter when the Federal Reserve expands its network. For example, as Congress did in 1980 when it amended the Federal Reserve Act to broaden the Fed's authority to make all depository institutions eligible for Fed accounts and services. This expansion brought nonmember banks, particularly the risks and credit unions into the network. And that historic instance, it's what created nationwide reach for today's ACH system, particularly because the Fed could interoperate with other private sector clearinghouses, which in turn gave value to the network that a single operating might not have achieved on its own. So even today, the use case for a dinosaur of a system like ACH, it's compelling for things like recurring payments because the domestic network is so broad. And as we look ahead and we consider retail CBDCs and in particular interoperability among intermediaries, wallet providers at CBDCs, their platforms. The central banks role today as a network hub could be informative, as well as the legal underpinnings of that. From a legal perspective, considering the US payment system as a whole, whether it's ACH or wire transfer or even cash, different forms of payment have different underlying legal spaces and may be conducted in different ways from an operational standpoint. But each, each of them is in essence the discharge of an underlying obligation, the essence of what it means to make a payment to pay a debt. And this could be viewed as legal interoperability in the US payment system, so to speak. This ability for users to smoothly and efficiently choose between arrangements that are subject to different legal frameworks, but at the same time be confident that the arrangement will, like all forms of money, serve as a way to make a payment. And this brings even more efficiency to users. It amplifies the network effects of each individual payment system. But taking all this together, though complex, the payment system is able to function smoothly and safely, largely because of the central bank's role as a network hub that supports the stake in efficient interoperation of the system's component parts. And from a legal perspective, again, although different legal bases underpin different arrangements, US payments law as a whole, that is commercial law, the regulatory regime and the supervisory framework. What it does is provide certainty and predictability that one dollar has a singular meaning in whatever form it takes. And now, as we're considering new forms of money, central bank digital currencies, the legal characterization of a CDDC, particularly if it is a sui generis asset, and the role of the intermediaries of platforms that they'll provide to support the holding and transfer CDDCs, these considerations will have important implications. In the US, investment securities went through a similar process decades ago, moving away from paper to electronic records. So here, we're in the realm of money, a retail CDDC would not necessarily serve the payment system, the general public well, as a result of new services that are poorly understood by the general public, and do not interoperate well with existing forms of money, including from a legal standpoint. So a critical question, an important consideration from a domestic standpoint is how to integrate any CDDC in the existing payment system. The questions of the day around the CDDC interoperability at a domestic level, how to allow CDDC payments between users, a different wallet and intermediaries, for example, this is not necessarily a new problem. And the Federal Reserve's role as a network hub has long served as a strong foundation for interoperability in the US payment system. Useful lessons could be leveraged from the historic evolution of payment systems and the policy considerations at each decision point, rather than reinventing the wheels to create a duplicative network for digital cash, which could in turn introduce new inefficiencies. And in particular, how a given jurisdiction chooses to reimagine its central banks network with a CDDC that will of course have a critical impact on interoperability from an international standpoint. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jess, for this important history lesson that we'll discuss thereafter. And now I'm turned to Panos who would need a topic from the euro area. Thank you very much, Otto. It's difficult speaking after Ross and Jess, because, you know, I could leave my presentation and step out immediately, but I will try to see what I could also offer. First slide, please. So the structure of what I would like to tell you today. And of course, as Jess mentioned before this is personal opinions doesn't reflect on the euro system its decision making bodies, etc. Is to delve a bit more on the legal interoperability as a notion and there's a notion that has already found its way to EU law. Ross did speak about the business and the semantic but there is one more level and that is what do texts tell us about interoperability. Then very briefly, second flight, if I may, then very briefly, you know, the assumption and the scope of the presentation, because there has been a lot of work done by the previous speakers that one needs to build upon but not necessarily repeat. Very briefly, on the desirability of cross currency interoperability for retail CBDC, and then how can you achieve it from the point of view of legal design. Ross has already given them presentation in his presentation a slide of interoperability and interlinking. I tried to simplify a bit because I think that from all these models, there are a few things that legally are the same problems or legally are the same matters. Then I will deal with impediments to cross currency interoperability and I would venture a series of conclusions, which of course because the issue is so novel will only be tentative. Next slide please. So legal interoperability interoperability is to be found a lot in technical terms. It did find its way into EU law in 1998 when we're discussing the SFD. And again, this is financial market infrastructures to which was hinted earlier on and Jess hinted when speaking about the Fedwire system. The SFD said interoperable systems are two or more systems will system operators have entered into an arrangement. There you go the legal element with one another that involves cross system execution of transfer orders. So this is the very primitive, you know, first attempt at the definition, you just need that the order goes from A to B, hopefully, you know, seamlessly. Then came, well, of course, the PFMI is and a mere where we speak about interoperability arrangement, and that is defined as an arrangement between two or more CCPs that involves a cross system execution of transactions again the same. Afterwards came the CSDR. So for CSDs in the EU, also influenced by the the the PFMI's, but at the same time by the, the, the, the T2S creation in Europe so the, the technical infrastructure that allowed all CSDs to have a common platform for the issuance of securities amongst participating CSDs. And there we have a little bit more meat to the bones of interoperability so interoperable security settlement systems and CSDs using a common settlement infrastructure read T2S shall establish identical moments of entry of transfer orders to the system and interoperability of such transfer orders. It's no longer only necessary to have the possibility of seamless cross execution of transactions, you need to have it in the law that these moments need to be are identical. And then in the end, and now we are in the field of payments and retail payments came the PSD2, which said that the EBA should specify the requirements of common and open standards of communication, so the business and semantic view of interoperability to be implemented by all account service payment service providers allowing for the provision of online payment services. These standards include interoperability of different technological communication solutions. And of course that brings me to the last point of the slide that it is important to see what is the, the, the means of a CBDC employment, because you will have different discussion and interoperability if you have account based CBDCs and different if you have account based CBDCs, you know, where are you going to put the emphasis, is it going to be a CLS structure or is it going to be interoperability, you know, that goes deep into points of sale. Next slide please. Thank you. The initial assumption is that we're speaking about a retail CBDC that has legal tender. Why retail CBDC? Because we already have an arrangement at wholesale level and that's called CLS. You know, you could say a lot about it. You could say that not everyone is in there but of course the legal arrangement for clearing of this complex for external actions already exists. We're not having legal tender. Well, if a means of payment is not legal tender in its own jurisdiction, it would be very difficult conceptually to see it promoted cross border. And then I'd like to speak about the things that I will not cover, but for which there is a good reason. The first is interoperability between different forms of currency. Legally, I believe that this is fungibility, one digital euro, one euro coin, one euro banknote if it existed. So, because they are fungible, they need to be interoperable. In this case, the legal reality should constrain the technicians to find a way to ensure this interoperability. The other part is the use of domestic retail CBDC abroad. In international law, you have lex monete, which means that in your jurisdiction, this is your legal tender. You might need to expand a bit the lex monete because now we can. It would be possible, for example, to say that citizens, even if residing abroad, can transact and they need to be made able to transact in the CBDC of their jurisdiction. But this again is a different issue. And the last issue which I wouldn't want to treat is the interoperability between CBDC and private issue digital assets, because this is something that Jess treated already in her presentation. And because in the end it's just the coexistence of the CBDC system with a wider payment ecosystem. It is something that, you know, as previous speakers underlined, we have been doing already call it Fedwire call it target. It is a function of the central bank to catalyze the market and to provide this kind of interlinking. Next slide please. Why are we even speaking about interoperability? Well, because interoperability means interconnection and if you connect the central spoke of the central bank issued currency, all the rest will follow suit. So what Jess was saying before about the national payment systems. And of course, and this is something that in sanctions times we shouldn't be forgetting whatever can be connected can also be more easily disconnected. You know, imagine a discussion on sanctions of a particular jurisdiction. If all currencies digitally retail where connected into a central spoke or issued through a central infrastructure and how easy it would be then discussing, you know, can we intervene at the level of swift, etc, etc. So that is another thing that one might need to consider when designing interoperable systems. Next slide please. The legal design. Ross has already had a very elaborate presentation on interlinkage and interoperability, but I think that we could or I would like to synthesize a bit and speak about three potentials. The first would be a single global point of issue, like a central infrastructure for all retail CBDCs, which, you know, we currently have in Europe for securities, and that is T2S. You know, everyone, there is a common platform to which functions are outsourced, but still the issuer is of the security is the local participating CSD. Similarly, the issuer of the digital currency would be the jurisdiction of issue. Is it realistic? Well, it will be very difficult because it would need to, you know, possibly comply with all the mandatory law provisions of all the participating jurisdictions. It would also need to have one applicable law. And, you know, I would already seek worlds about what the supplicable law would be. Additionally, it could be, and I don't want to prejudice, you know, the message that Ross gave before, but it could be perceived as a single point of failure in times where cyber security is paramount. It would be more difficult to attack more systems than simply one after which you have control of all participating currencies. And the final point, the governance and the control, introducing new members, taking new members out, payments, families normally quarrel over money, and this time in the literal sense. The other part is a central node. And for that, the inspiration would be the CLS. So it is an exchange, if you will, of retail currencies. Realistic will probably a bit more realistic because central banks keep a bit more autonomy. Is there a single point of failure? In the sense that it is the platform that controls the interoperability. But of course, you could have a contingency solution. And in the end, it is not the issue of the digital currency itself that is prejudice, it is just the inter-language and governance and control. I don't want to face exactly the same issue, but precisely because the scope is more limited, potentially also the reaction and the pushback on governance could be tolerable. And then there's something else, which is already done currently and that is bilateral agreements between CBs, you know, the precursor in instant payments in Europe. As some of you might know, we already have agreements with non-euro-area central banks that make tips and tips payments available in their currencies and in euro as well. This is a contractual arrangement, which gives it the possibility to make it tailor-made. So jurisdiction A, jurisdiction B might give different privileges and different limits. But of course, it fragments the flow of cross-border CBDC or retail CBDC cross-border and from that viewpoint, it might be not the most efficient way forward. I saved the first phrase for the end. Legally, I don't think there is a general obligation to make currencies interoperable. Ross pointed to the IMF agreements and also with regards to the EU treaty speaking about a free movement of capital or no technical obstacles, but this doesn't mean that there is a positive obligation of interoperability. Interoperability would solve the equation in the most optimal fashion, but the possibility of exchange should be enough. Next slide, please. Right. And now I have two sets of legal impediments that I would like to share with you for discussion. The first slide is mostly institutional. The second one comes from the financial commercial aspect. Central Bank mandate. It is important before entering into a cross-currency interoperability arrangement to see if all central banks can first of all establish a CBDC and there is a very good IMF paper on that. And also render it interoperable. And, you know, this is something that is very national law specific in some statutes, you might say that if it is implicitly is enough in other jurisdiction, implicit powers would not do because you have conferral and delegation of powers. So this is the first thing one would need to examine. The second one is the different design. I hinted already at account and token. You know, how could it be that an account based CBDC of country X can be rendered interoperable with a token based CBDC of country Y. They don't even share the same platform. So you would need some kind of, I dare speak the word harmonization in this case. Also, design sometimes dictates the legal nature, an account, you know, a lawyer would treat it as a claim. A token, it would be a rest. It would be a quasi rest. It could be a tertium genus that we would need to consider. Then you have complex supervision and oversight arrangements to the extent you make your currency interoperable and to the extent you make your own payment ecosystem interoperable as Jess hinted before. If an entity in country X is of importance for a currency or for the digital currency of country Y, would such country have or claim or should they claim supervision or oversight? So is a college arrangement enough, could we move to something more than what we have now precisely because we're not speaking any longer about territorial or national financial stability, but at a global level. And of course you could have conflicting and or cumulative natural national legal requirements. And here the examples are very easy. Assume the central bank digital currency of country X that has very, very stringent data protection standards. We are imposed privacy by default, privacy by design, etc, etc. And then it is rendered interoperable with a jurisdiction where the philosophy is completely different. Either the fact or the user, you know, full control, full transparency, etc. Would it be possible to be more concrete? Would it be possible to render the digital euro interoperable with the currency whose jurisdiction has a negative adequacy finding by the European Commission as regards data protection to be seen. Same thing for AML CFT, which Ross hinted to before, you know, you might have CBDCs with lower limits and they entail lower level of AML CFT compliance in customer due diligence. What happens if you have a cross border transaction with a CBDC that has a higher limit, which one will supersede both of them. And then next slide please. Thank you. Then the second set of impediments to cross cross currency interoperability I see third party technology. If you establish such a platform, you are bound to also because there is a high degree of standardization to be dependent on third parties. That means that you would need to be given, especially in an implementation where you have one central infrastructure global freedom to operate. I'm not saying it cannot be done. But of course, it is practically more difficult. And then also conflict complex infrastructure governance. I think we both hinted, but both previous speakers hinted on governance arrangements before so I don't want to to stall. You might have conflicting function functionalities of the CBDCs. So imagine one that imposes holding limits or transaction limits and one that doesn't. That means using the cross country or cross currency interoperability in order to bypass those. So you would need to find a way and this, you know, in in T2S, for example, we call compliance with own legislative requirements. Especially if you operate a central infrastructure to make it compliant with all limitations of all relevant legal orders. And the fourth impediment is the very complex liability arrangements. Many parties existence of technical providers freedom to operate with regards to IPR at the global level. Things that can go wrong and a great number of actors. I think this would be every lawyer's nightmare from a contractual perspective. Next slide please. You know, in view of the presentation of the design and the impediments a few tentative conclusion. I tried not to speak about financial market infrastructures, but it is impossible because the inspiration comes from there. It is what we know. But it can only be an inspiration because some implementations of the digital currency might not involve a financial market infrastructure as we know it. The second one is that the legal doctrine must align with political will and technological capacity, you know, lawyers running after technicians, all the more being true. And in this particular case, we see it already because of the discussion in various jurisdiction about the legal nature of the CBDC. You know, we move from the dichotomy of thing versus claim to, you know, a tertium genus or a quasi rest. And of course, you know, that's a truism. There are novel issues to be addressed and their design and legal nature will be key. Whether we could have harmonization at, you know, at global level to ensure interoperability. I am not sure. I think with the citation of a paper by the CPMI, which although is old, you know, predates the whole CBDC discussion I think is very topical cross border and cross currency payments are inherently more complex than domestic ones. And now put inside the complexity of CBDC. And then, you know, you realize why we spend the last hour talking about it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Actually, I'm quite glad you haven't walked off because we certainly could add further value to the panel. And at the beginning I envisaged that, you know, the fact that they have interoperability on the agenda means that the CBDC topic is already maturing. It's still true, but admittedly having listened to the, you know, competing ideas about the issues, it seems that we didn't interoperability at the moment we have maybe more questions than than answers. However, the questions are, but hopefully, you know, very in a very short time, like in the next 15 minutes, we can resolve some of this when Serena will summarize the issues tries to draw some conclusions and choice the way what we can do already at this stage to address this issue. Thank you very much for the kind introduction and for the high benchmark that you set for my intervention. I would also like to thank the organizers for inviting me to speak at this conference and invitation that I accepted with much pleasure. Well, good afternoon. Also from my side, as Otto mentioned, my role as academic discussant of this panel is to synthesize the incredibly rich contributions we have heard from my distinguished co-speakers. And I would also like to draw some high level conclusions regarding the legal interoperability of a future digital era. Now, a quick question that ran through this panel was what is retail CBDC legal interoperability and why is it important? And what came out of today's presentations is that the need for retail CBDCs to interoperate also through an enabling role of the law is connected to the objectives that they are to serve. At the domestic level, retail CBDCs must interoperate with other systems of money of the same currency to serve as an interchangeable means of payment and potentially also store of value. And at the international level, on the other hand, there is a need or at least a desire ability for retail CBDCs to interoperate with other retail CBDC systems and systems of money denominated in another currency. Now, at this level, the objective of retail CBDCs is primarily to facilitate cross-border payments and to safeguard the international role of the domestic currency. I would like to first look at the domestic level that was addressed by Jess on the basis of the US experience and then turn to the cross-border context addressed by Ross and Parnos. Jess nicely set out how in the US's national payment system, different forms or systems of private and public money used by citizens and firms interoperate on the basis of a tiered model. Now, a very similar picture could be drawn for the Euro area. A key feature of this tiered model is that commercial bank deposits, that is private money, and cash, that is public money, are freely and mutually convertible. Cash serves as an anchor in this monetary system, and it ensures that all monetary objects denominated in the domestic currency circulate at par, independent of whether they're private or public money. Now for citizens, this means that they can choose which form of money they want to use to transact a payment without encountering friction if the transaction crosses systems. With retail CBDC, a new system of money enters the scene. And jurisdictions that consider introducing a retail CBDC typically aim to provide to the public with a digital equivalent and a complement to cash. A key motivation for the adoption of a digital Euro, for example, is precisely the declining use of cash, which may weaken the function of cash as the anchor to other forms of money, in particular commercial bank deposits. Now, if a digital Euro is to share that anchor function with cash, it needs to interoperate just as smoothly, or at least similarly smoothly, with commercial bank deposits as cash does. Users of the digital Euro should, in principle, at all times, and without friction be able to change systems by transferring digital euros to their commercial bank accounts, or vice versa, by withdrawing funds from their commercial bank accounts and transferring them to their digital Euro accounts or digital wallets. And just like in the case of cash deposits or withdrawals, users' funds would switch from being public money to being private money or vice versa. In principle, this conversion between retail CBDC and commercial bank deposits would take place at par. And I'm saying in principle, because I imagine that limits imposed on holdings of digital Euro would affect its free convertibility. Let us now turn to the international level that, as Barnel said, adds a few layers of complexity to the discussion. And at this level, interoperability refers to the ability to transfer retail CBDC across borders and convert it into retailed CBDC or other forms of fiat money denominated in another currency. Ross also mentioned the possibility for countries to grant non-residents access to their domestic retail CBDC, which is different from creating actually interoperable systems. Now in this rather unexplored territory that Ross and Panos so bravely embarked upon, we can look to several precedents for inspiration, as Panos called it. A first set of precedents are arrangements that are in place for cross-border and at least partially cross-currency wholesale payments and settlement. Panos explicitly mentioned CLS, T2S and the target instant payment settlement system. A second precedent could be seen in the continuing experimentation with wholesale multi-CBDC arrangement which Ross discussed. Now all these precedents hint at potential high-level models for connecting different retail CBDC systems. And they also hint at the many potential legal and operational challenges that cross-border interoperability of retail CBDC would involve. Now my personal key takeaway from the presentations by Ross and Panos is the following, very basic one. As retail CBDCs are being developed as a domestic means of payment, at least primarily, their potential future role as a vehicle for cross-border transactions should be kept in mind. Early reflection on these potential operational and legal impediments is vital. It ensures that there will be efficient cross-border interoperability once retail CBDCs have been successfully adopted in several jurisdictions. And it ensures that these retail CBDCs do no cross-border harm. Now, if I'm allowed to take a few more minutes, I would like to draw some conclusions on what is needed to render the digital euro legally interoperable. The digital euro is unique in the sense that it combines a domestic with an international dimension. It is domestic in the sense that it concerns one unit of account, the euro, and one central hub or balance sheet, the ECB or the euro system if you want. It is international in that it operates in a regulatory and legal environment that is only partially harmonized and where financial institutions are largely supervised at member-state level. So against this background, I would claim that there are three broad and partially interconnected preconditions for digital euro legal interoperability in a broader sense. The first is the need to create a system for the digital euro's entire lifecycle from its issuance to its production, its distribution, as well as storage and transfer. Now, much of the ultimate design of the digital euro remains open for the time being, of course, but it is likely that the system will involve financial intermediaries and or wallet providers in one way or another. A rulebook will formalize the roles and responsibilities of the ECB as the likely operator of the core system, commercial banks, potentially other service providers, and it will establish a governance structure and uniform rules for the digital euro system. On the basis of this rulebook, participating private entities will then have to establish processes and applications that are interoperable with the core system provided by the ECB. Now, I would argue that much of the creation of this digital euro system falls within the competence of the ECB on the basis of its issuance power, Article 128 of the treaty. However, input by other EU institutions, in particular the co-legislators, will be necessary to render this system legally interoperable. And that brings me to the second precondition, the embedding of the digital euro in the EU's broader legal framework. And again, a detailed legal analysis remains difficult in light of the uncertain ultimate design of the digital euro, but it is possible to identify some key areas of EU legislation that will require reconsideration in anticipation of the digital euro. And Palos has highlighted some of them already from a cross-order perspective. They include, and that is more by example than really conclusively, the prudential regimes for private entities participating in the system. Some entities such as wallet providers may have to be brought within the reach of adequate prudential rules and supervision, for example by making them payment institutions under the Payment Services Directive. But also existing prudential regimes may have to be adapted, think of the licensing requirements for banks or the rules for their resolution in case they fail. Another broad area for reconsideration, you won't be surprised, concerns the balancing between the needs to be compliant with AML CFT requirements on the one hand and laws on data protection as well as privacy rights on the other. This has been mentioned before. So any data governance arrangements for the digital euro, whatever they may look like in the end, will have to be adequately brought in line with the requirements of the fifth AML directive, including its future amendments, of course, as well as relevant data protection regulations. But it is not only EU law that has an impact on the digital euro's interoperability. Member States legal frameworks and traditions may vary quite considerably in their likely treatment of the digital euro under private law, especially, as Bonos mentioned, if the digital euro is issued under a token based design. So as a third precondition, there is a need to understand which legal impediments may arise for the interoperability of the digital euro from Member States diverging private law regimes. This will facilitate a better joint understanding of the unique features of the digital euro, and it will allow for the development of uniform principles, according to which its legal status could be harmonized. I dare to use the word, at least to some extent, across the EU. Just briefly, and then I conclude, looking beyond the EU's jurisdiction, such key principles could ultimately be enshrined in an international code of legislation similar to the Hague and Geneva Securities Conventions on Intermediated Securities. That's not only a dream of us academics. There is already work ongoing in the UNITWA project on digital assets and private law that covers digital assets more generally, but it could provide a useful starting point. And with that, I conclude and I thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Serena, for the very helpful summary and conclusion that we managed to enlighten some of the issues. It's of course admittedly also clear that we'll be entertained with digital currency related work for years to come, if you want to address all these issues that we listed here. I understand now it's time for questions, so I encourage, I know it's more difficult in this digital format to ask questions, but certainly would encourage the audience to do so. And I understand that we already have one question from Lara Pinto from the ECB. Lara, if you could kindly ask a question. Yes, thank you very much, Otto. So I have two questions for our lovely panel and thank you very much as well for your valuable insights. It was a very interesting presentation to listen to this afternoon. So my first question goes for the entire panel. I would like to see your views on the fact that basically the convertibility between cash and the CBDC is basically considered to be a mandatory feature from the different views expressed in the presentations. And my question was whether going forward and assuming that there would be a decline in the significant decline in use of cash, whether you would see a possibility that this convertibility between CBDC and cash would no longer be maintained in the future. So this is the first question. And the second question, more addressed to Ross and Panos. It has to do with the crossword interoperability at the international level. My question is whether you would consider feasible to achieve this global interoperability at all. And what I mean is how far along are we to really see a truly global and single platform aggregating all of the CBDCs come to light, given all the different hurdles and technical and legal challenges that have come to light with your with your presentations. Thank you very much. So I leave it to panel members who would think of the questions. And she might need to start. I have no problem starting. Thanks a lot Lara for for the questions. So the first one with regards to convertibility. Again, assuming that they are legal tender. For me, legally, and I know I'm very rigid and dogmatic, but there needs to be a one to one convertibility taking into consideration any holding limits that you might have on the digital currency, of course. Now, you know, I'm not so naive. So it's not to know that the cash has a different cost than the digital currency and also this convertibility will have a cost. And also the legal tender implies the acceptance and full phase value, which means with no surcharges, which means someone, you know, ends up holding the the short end of the stick on this one and it cannot be the end user. But, you know, in the end, it is a new project, it has its costs, we just one just need to find the way of allocating its in respect of the principle of legal tender and also financial reality. So it is a question of technical adaptability, you know, as far as I'm concerned. And then the, you know, your second question, I would certainly hope so. But of course it all depends on the needs of having cross currency interoperability, cross currency, cross digital currency interoperability. It might be that some jurisdictions are not yet ready for it, but the technical possibility for them to be able to issue should be there. Maybe if I might pick up on Panos' comments, which I certainly agree with, you know, with respect to the idea of creating some sort of global framework, obviously, I think we need some more CBDCs out there to see if it might all fit together. But secondly, it would be a long process that would require a lot of political will. What might perhaps be more foreseeable, at least in the foreseeable future would be the development of payments platforms that exist in different regions, potentially with their interlinkages or something more ambitious than that. I just want to maybe pick up on one point that Panos made in his presentation, which I just want to express my agreement with. You know, there's nothing in the current international legal framework for cross-border payments that would require interoperability between CBDCs or necessarily CBDCs at all, or CBDCs that can be used for cross-border payments. I think the important point is that as countries issue CBDCs, we need to consider the international implications and what types of rules should apply. So maybe I'll stop there. Thank you. I can just add to Ross, I noticed their perspective from a domestic standpoint. And Larry, thanks for the great question. I would say convertibility between CBDCs and banknotes, the policy matter, that is viewed as a worthwhile goal. It would not be a great outcome if CBDCs were issued in their own siloed closed-off system of money. I think an interesting policy question related to that would be convertibility between CBDCs and commercial bank deposits or other balances that end-users might hold with their wallet provider or their intermediary. Should there be limits there, for example, just to make sure that CBDCs as a central bank liability and the safest form of money doesn't completely supplant commercial bank money, private money in the system. We've talked about interoperabilities, the efficiencies they bring, network effects of positive sides, but there could also be downsides where, again, a central bank money dominates the system, or looking cross-border, dollarization occurs to the detriment of other jurisdictions. And that's where efficiencies, what interoperability brings, maybe you don't want to take it to this maximum extent. We've talked about limits, transaction limits, holding limits, introducing inefficiencies to the system where interoperability is still there, but it's not as smooth and free-flowing that would allow for these bad outcomes. Thanks. Thank you very much for the answer. As I'm pleased to see further questions, so I suggest we move on to the next one. We already have to have a disclaimer about the right pronunciation of names, apologies. The next question comes from Annalika Mui. If Annalika, if you could kindly ask your question. Okay, I think you can hear me. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much for allowing me to ask a question. I'm very interested in the digital euro. But I was wondering, I actually have two questions. As regards to storing this wallet, the digital euro in wallets, how would you prevent something that we're seeing right now in other virtual currencies, which is these non-custodian wallets, which allow users to be largely anonymous, if not fully anonymous, in their storage and transaction capacity? Is this a matter of law or is this a matter of technology? And if you allow wallets to store both digital currencies and other types of virtual currencies, would there be the risk of double legislation or how should legislation respond to this dual function of wallets? Thank you very much. Sir, right now, shall I or would you? All right. Oh my God, that goes with a lot of disclaimers. You know, up to now we do not have a technical design that will allow me to tell you that there will be a wallet or not. Whether you would allow anonymous wallets or not, you need to look at the AMLD as it currently stands in order to have an inspiration. And one could claim that for very short, very small amounts, I think the current threshold is 150, non-renewable monthly, et cetera, you could. Above that, you would probably have, you know, need for onboarding and need for customer due diligence and for due diligence on the transaction as well. I think it's Article 14. Whether it can be anonymous in general, I think there are limits conceptually and you cannot fully replicate cash into a central bank digital currency. Because in a digital currency, inevitably, you could go down to the root of title. The question is in accordance with current legislation, whether you should be able to do it as a central bank. And there I would just remind that, you know, privacy and data protection are fundamental rights under both the treaty for the functioning of the EU as well as Council of Europe treaties. Lots of disclaimers, hopefully hints of an answer. I can just go ahead right now. Thank you. Yeah, I also find it incredibly difficult to answer. And I think I will just follow up on what Panos said. I think it is a mix of technical, of being a technical matter, also a legal matter, but also a policy and even political matter. To what extent there should be fully anonymous, sort of non-stonian wallets. Now, as Panos said, there is clear, I will speak just from the legal perspective, there's clear limits to how far anonymity can go and there could be full anonymity when it comes to really small value payments. And then of course the question is how small is small, but there are legal limits to such an institution. That would be my take on it. I would just add to, I think you teed up a great question, what is the supervisory, the regulatory wrapper that should apply to these intermediary, these wallet providers. And that's important because for one thing we're talking about a central bank digital currency, a liability of the central bank. It's the face of the central bank to the general public. Perhaps conveyed, perhaps custodyed or accessed through this private sector intermediary. I think it's also important because we're talking about interoperability. We have wallet providers, different entities within a system, a central bank digital currency system. Each participant in the system poses risk exposures to each other to the system more generally. So the regulatory supervisor may be eligibility standards that apply to a CVDC wallet provider. That's important, both from an AML see a few standpoints when it comes to doing diligence on customers, but also to your second question. What other activities, what other services can they provide? One point of comparison could be how banks, at least in the US, I imagine similar in the EU are supervised today. There are legal permissibility limitations. They can't engage in anything they would like. It's only certain activities that they may engage in for the benefit of having a bank charter and access fed systems. There's also prudential safety and sadness supervision. And those are the guardrails that are in place. I think certainly as we think through CVDC wallet providers intermediaries, to the extent they engage in a smaller spikes of activity or more limited range of services, perhaps it's not engaging in lending or money creation, then perhaps a smaller role, and I'm sure in the EU, there are data points already that's lesser than full scale bank regulation. But it is useful to think about the supervisory wrapper, what should apply to an intermediary? How can be tailored to their new roles and responsibilities with respect to a CVDC? Thank you. Yes, indeed. And in fact, just also a kid to me that, you know, like when it comes to data protection standards, and we are designing interoperability and different standards and different jurisdictions, what liability we might have if all of a sudden we cannot ensure in an interoperability context that the data protection standards need to uphold, say the EU system also upholds at the other end of the interoperability. Well, I see that we have still two more questions and I suggest, you know, let them be asked. And the next person is Erica Tegela, who understands, has a question. Hi, good afternoon. In January 2022, the European Commission published the European Declaration of Digital Rights and principles for the digital decade, which is admittedly a political declaration, it's not a legal document yet, but some commentators did it already as a kind of magna charter for political fundamental rights. And for those who are not familiar with this, one of the five points in this document in the digital rights document is promoting safer standards that give users the power over their data, so Thanos already mentioned data protection, which is important, but I, to my mind also comes the situation we have in Europe right now. Chiara mentioned it in her introductory comments this morning. We discover that we are highly dependent on non European partners, for example in the energy market. We probably don't want to discover later on that we are highly dependent on non European partners who run a platform that runs a future digital euro. And as a European citizen, I think we all want to be protected from non European partners who may have too big a say in the technical run in the technical setup of this future digital euro. And my question would be, I mean, is this simply a policy choice, or could one argue with something more high level and maybe with fundamental rights that we all as European citizens have arrived at our personal data, not only our personal data, our data is protected from this and how is this taken into consideration. Unless someone else is brave, I don't mind, you know, putting the elements of an answer. I think I hinted at that previously saying that privacy and data protection are fundamental rights. And you will tell me, you know, the letter of the law and the application are two different things and in a time of, you know, severe technological progress, what does the letter of the treaty mean in practice. And it will have to be, you know, seeing how the various digital currencies are implemented and cross operate. There are tools, but there are tools at the very granular level, you know, what can you put at the cloud. There are clear guidelines on, you know, how you select, for example, your your cloud providers. So, really, and completely, you know, without danger, well, anytime you put personal data out there, you have some risk to end on a happy note where there is always cash which is fully anonymous, and this is also a central banking product so, you know, for the ones that are very, very cautious. It's not that all issues and all exits to anonymity are blocked. Unless there is any intention to continue the comments from, from the other panel members, then I suggest we move to the last question. If I understand correctly, Toncicza will read it out. The lady is back. Okay. Well, Claudia would answer her questions herself. Sorry to ask her question herself. Claudia, please. Hello. I think you can hear me now. Yeah. My question was a bit on the outside so I left it for to the end and if there were no more questions there was time I would put it otherwise I would just keep quiet. So my question is about the do no arm criteria and how far can this criteria go. Unfortunately, I'm concerned about the environmental impact of the digital currencies. And that my question is, is there are criterias being considered regarding this issue, the energy intensity of digital currencies is discovered by the no arm criteria as well, or we will just look at the principles that we have now regarding the kind of energy that is used and the intensity, because you already have a lot of problems to solve as I see from the discussion. Thank you. Yeah. Should I take that one auto. Yep. Thank you very much for the question. I think it's a very interesting one. I think, of course, the should first be noted that the, the do no harm principle it's been as it's been articulated in recent papers is something that's very new, particularly in the the cross border context. The discussion so far is focused very much on economic issues, particularly the effect on another country's economy, words balance payments to my knowledge it hasn't focused yet on broader considerations like the potential environmental impact of one currency over another. There is of course an important domestic consideration in this regard as to what the environmental consequences of a CBDC will be will be. But it would be the technology underlying the platform would have a significant effect on the amount of energy use if it's some sort of consensus mechanism versus something more more streamlined indefinite. And I'll stop there. Thank you. Then I guess we reached the end of our discussion in this panel today and thank you very much for the very inspiring and illuminating interventions. I think we all enjoyed the nerd from it. And I can certainly promise that I will think of this panel when the first time I will pay with my, I will try to change my digital euro into dollar token at the charging station with a for a self driving vehicle in my holiday in the US. And let's hope we get there soon. And now it's time to give the word to our car who will understand close this intensive day of the conference. Thank you. Thank you very much Otto. Thank you very much everybody. It has been a pleasure to hear and to see you all a lot of good old friends online. It was fascinating. We had to today the three panels that deal with the acceleration or the development on phenomena that from the legal point of view are particularly interesting and we had fantastic experts from different continents as well. I also would like to thank the audience because the questions were quite challenging and stimulating so the wishes always don't stop here. Keep in mind those issues. Let's develop further. The book will come later but let's keep in contact and especially don't forget to join us tomorrow because we have three more panels. They will not focus on the follow up or developments of COVID but more on issues related to rule of law but it is a very fascinating area also for lawyers. Thank you to all and I will deserve end of the afternoon and thank you chair for giving me the floor. Have a nice evening. Bye bye.