Warning: Unauthorised Retail Credit Firm Unauthorised Firm Name IKKS Invest Website www.ikksinvest.eu Email address(es) used services@ikksinvest.eu Phone number(s) used +33 6 44 68 79 69 Authorisation in Ireland IKKS Invest is not authorised to provide retail credit services in Ireland. Additional information This scam is an example of an ‘advanced fee fraud’, where a payment is sought upfront prior to providing a loan. The loans are never provided. Notes:Any person wishing to contact the Central Bank with information regarding such firms / persons may telephone (01) 224 5800.For more information on how to protect yourself from financial scams, please visit www.centralbank.ie/financialscams The name of the above firm is published under section 53 of the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013

Warning: Unauthorised Retail Credit Firm Unauthorised Firm Name IKKS Invest Website www.ikksinvest.eu Email address(es) used services@ikksinvest.eu Phone number(s) used +33 6 44 68 79 69 Authorisation in Ireland IKKS Invest is not authorised to provide retail credit services in Ireland. Additional information This scam is an example of an ‘advanced fee fraud’, where a payment is sought upfront prior to providing a loan. The loans are never provided. Notes:Any person wishing to contact the Central Bank with information regarding such firms / persons may telephone (01) 224 5800.For more information on how to protect yourself from financial scams, please visit www.centralbank.ie/financialscams The name of the above firm is published under section 53 of the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013

Warning: Unauthorised Retail Credit Firm Unauthorised Firm Name IKKS Invest Website www.ikksinvest.eu Email address(es) used services@ikksinvest.eu Phone number(s) used +33 6 44 68 79 69 Authorisation in Ireland IKKS Invest is not authorised to provide retail credit services in Ireland. Additional information This scam is an example of an ‘advanced fee fraud’, where a payment is sought upfront prior to providing a loan. The loans are never provided. Notes:Any person wishing to contact the Central Bank with information regarding such firms / persons may telephone (01) 224 5800.For more information on how to protect yourself from financial scams, please visit www.centralbank.ie/financialscams The name of the above firm is published under section 53 of the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013

Warning: Unauthorised Retail Credit Firm Unauthorised Firm Name IKKS Invest Website www.ikksinvest.eu Email address(es) used services@ikksinvest.eu Phone number(s) used +33 6 44 68 79 69 Authorisation in Ireland IKKS Invest is not authorised to provide retail credit services in Ireland. Additional information This scam is an example of an ‘advanced fee fraud’, where a payment is sought upfront prior to providing a loan. The loans are never provided. Notes:Any person wishing to contact the Central Bank with information regarding such firms / persons may telephone (01) 224 5800.For more information on how to protect yourself from financial scams, please visit www.centralbank.ie/financialscams The name of the above firm is published under section 53 of the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013

Warning: Unauthorised Retail Credit Firm Unauthorised Firm Name IKKS Invest Website www.ikksinvest.eu Email address(es) used services@ikksinvest.eu Phone number(s) used +33 6 44 68 79 69 Authorisation in Ireland IKKS Invest is not authorised to provide retail credit services in Ireland. Additional information This scam is an example of an ‘advanced fee fraud’, where a payment is sought upfront prior to providing a loan. The loans are never provided. Notes:Any person wishing to contact the Central Bank with information regarding such firms / persons may telephone (01) 224 5800.For more information on how to protect yourself from financial scams, please visit www.centralbank.ie/financialscams The name of the above firm is published under section 53 of the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be with you today and to address a topic so crucial to the future of financial services: the utilisation of innovation and technology to conduct – and most importantly, combat – financial crime. In the mid to late ’90s, when email truly took off as a global tool for commerce, I was a barrister working for the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service amongst others, dealing with various criminal cases including serious frauds. Justified enthusiasm about the ability to connect the world more effectively and efficiently was subsequently dampened somewhat by use of the technology for all manner of deceptions, frauds and financial crimes. Several decades later, we see the same pattern playing out in real-time with artificial intelligence, with criminals using AI tools to bypass customer due diligence controls and carry out fraud via social engineering. These sophisticated methods, including the use of AI tools via text, images, and voice, present significant challenges for regulators and supervisors. There’s a popular saying that the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, but the realist adjusts the sails. As a regulator with hard-won experience of developing frameworks, building the teams to implement them, and deploying technology to combat financial crime and address misconduct, I’m very much a realist – albeit one who remains stubbornly optimistic. I don’t believe it’s an either/or scenario.  Put simply, I believe in the potential benefits of innovation and technology for consumers, investors, businesses and society – and want to see them realised. But this also means the risks must be effectively managed – we must, as it were, adjust the sails. The importance of collective responsesThe risks, of course, need no explanation to this audience. The anonymity of virtual assets can be used to transfer illicit funds quickly and across borders, with criminals increasingly leveraging new technologies to commit fraud, launder the proceeds of crime, and carry out financing of terrorism. The speed at which funds can be moved across borders makes it easier for criminals to exploit the financial system. And so on. Last month, the Central Bank of Ireland published statistics showing the value of fraud in payments in Ireland increased by a quarter in 2023 compared to 2022 – from €100m to circa €126m.1  Fraud was highest in credit transfers and card payments, with the biggest growth seen in money remittance. This echoes trends across Europe, with a joint EBA/ECB report in August 2024 revealing that fraud losses are highest in credit transfer and card payments across the European Economic Area (EEA).2Financial crime, of course, recognises no borders. And so, given the scale of the challenge which regulators and law enforcement agencies face, collective action – a harmonised response - is imperative. Which is why the EU’s AML package is so important – it provides the framework and the agency (AMLA) through which we will collectively meet the challenge head on. The AML package is by design technology neutral.  It applies to traditional banking/financial models equally as it applies to crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), crowd-funding platforms and intermediaries.  It obliges all types of firms that come within its ambit to comply with a set of AML/CFT rules that have now been harmonised across Europe.  How these firms comply with the rules is up to them, via traditional AML/CFT compliance programmes or by using regtech tools. What’s essential is that the means used are effective, and that such effectiveness can be demonstrated to supervisors. This will be the case both for the 40 obliged entities that will be directly supervised by AMLA and the firms supervised by national AML authorities.3  Not waiting for the wind to change, the EU has addressed a number of emerging risks in the package. To give some examples, the use of AI is acknowledged under the package, with an obligation on firms to ensure that human oversight is applied to decisions proposed by AI tools that may impact customers in certain areas.Additionally, details of Virtual IBANs which are linked to other payment accounts will have to be recorded in member states’ Bank Account Registers. This will allow law enforcement to trace any funds being moved by such Virtual IBANs.  Finally, the package introduces the concept of Information Sharing Partnerships. Through these, credit and financial institutions will be enabled to share information relating to high risk customers, subject to important guardrails including data protection assessments.  The lack of an ability to share such information has long been pointed to as a real weak link in the system, which could allow someone who had an account closed by one bank on ML/TF grounds to seek to open an account in another.  It is hoped that these partnerships will be a real game-changer in the fight to keep bad actors from accessing the financial system in order to launder ill-gotten gains.  Tech solutions, including tools which can allow information to be shared between financial institutions in a manner that complies with GDPR, will be essential here.The package is also forward-looking in respect of sanctions. Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine exposed some fault lines in the EU’s Financial Sanctions Framework.  The package seeks to remedy this by imposing obligations on obliged entities to put in place frameworks to prevent and detect attempted breaches of EU financial sanctions. It also requires obliged entities to ensure that prospective customers, and any person who owns or controls such prospective customers, are screened against the financial sanctions list prior to onboarding.  Here again, we see the importance of effective technological solutions - the use of screening tools will be imperative for firms seeking to protect themselves from the possibility of breaching sanctions.Developing a wider approach to preventing financial crimeMoney laundering pre-supposes a predicate crime which has generated assets for a criminal. Looking more widely across the landscape, more work is required to put in place a comprehensive financial crime preventative framework that includes fraud.   The EU and member states have started thinking about fraud and money laundering more holistically, rather than two silos to be tackled independently. This is very welcome. For our part, the Central Bank of Ireland is approaching AML, fraud, and sanctions through the lens of financial integrity of the system. We are building out a more integrated supervisory framework to look at risk in a more holistic way. We want to take a whole-of-sector, rather than piecemeal, approach, and so very much support emerging EU thinking in this area. As a single market and economic and political union, the EU can point to work already under way and leverage further opportunities to confront the challenges involved. Already, there are a number of other important EU developments aimed at protecting the financial integrity of the system and the citizens who depend on it. PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation will strengthen customer authentication rules and extending refund rights of consumers who have fallen victim to fraud, among other measures. The EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCAR) includes rules relating to the information to be made available to prospective investors in crypto assets, partly in response to the proliferation of scams involving crypto asset issuance. The amended Fund Transfer Regulation ensures that transfers of crypto assets by CASPs must now be accompanied by information on the sender and recipient, in the same way that credit transfers between banks must be.  The Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) obliges providers of standard and instant credit transfers to verify the payee at no additional charge to the payer. It also obliges PSPs offering instant credit transfers to screen their customer base against targeted financial sanctions lists at least daily. The various regulatory and policy developments to tackle financial crime cannot succeed in isolation. For this reason, supervisors have been on a steady march away from reliance on traditional supervisory tools and are increasingly exploring ways to transform technology from an enabler of financial crime to a tool in the detection, disruption and successful prosecution of financial crime. In that context, I’d like to mention a significant milestone in the Central Bank of Ireland’s innovation journey - the launch of our Innovation Sandbox Programme last December on the specific theme of Combatting Financial Crime. About the sandboxThis initiative offers a structured environment for firms to develop innovative solutions in a collaborative environment, ensuring that new technologies are introduced safely and effectively into the financial sector.The seven participants in the programme are employing new technologies and innovative methods to develop solutions that tackle financial crime, for the benefit of both the financial system and consumers.Participants are representative of a diverse spectrum of innovators from Ireland, across Europe and the UK and feature start-ups, scaling firms, partnerships and established financial services firms.Although it is still at an early stage in the programme, several key areas of focus have been identified such as:The use of AI, machine learning, and pattern recognition to detect and prevent fraud; andThe use of technology to enable data sharing without compromising sensitive information, allowing real-time verification of identities and other credentials while ensuring full compliance with data protection regulations and the development of digital identity verification tools.The Central Bank is organising workshops for participating firms on specific topics relevant to theme of combating financial crime, facilitating bespoke engagement with dedicated relationship managers, and providing access to a data platform offering data sets and tools relevant to the theme. This will allow participants to test and develop their innovation. We are hugely excited about the programme and look forward to sharing the results of it in due course. ConclusionIn conclusion, I was greatly struck by something Elizabeth McCaul of the ECB Supervisory Board previously said: “Technology is fundamentally a human activity… technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so.”4 The reality is that no piece of legislation can contemplate every financial crime risk or typology or close every loophole. We can’t wipe out financial crime – any more than we can wipe out car theft, shoplifting or burglary. But what we can do is to become as effective as possible at reducing its impact.Hence, as technology evolves, it behoves regulators and supervisors to evolve too - continually adapting to keep pace with these changes and ensure that, collectively and individually, we are the forefront of protecting the integrity of the financial system and those who use it. Thank you.[1] Behind the Data – Insights from Irish Payment Fraud Statistics[2] EBA and ECB 2024 Report on Payment Fraud[3] The 40 obliged entities will comprise the highest risk entities operating across the EU and at least one entity from each Member State.[4]ECB Supervisory board - Technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so 

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be with you today and to address a topic so crucial to the future of financial services: the utilisation of innovation and technology to conduct – and most importantly, combat – financial crime. In the mid to late ’90s, when email truly took off as a global tool for commerce, I was a barrister working for the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service amongst others, dealing with various criminal cases including serious frauds. Justified enthusiasm about the ability to connect the world more effectively and efficiently was subsequently dampened somewhat by use of the technology for all manner of deceptions, frauds and financial crimes. Several decades later, we see the same pattern playing out in real-time with artificial intelligence, with criminals using AI tools to bypass customer due diligence controls and carry out fraud via social engineering. These sophisticated methods, including the use of AI tools via text, images, and voice, present significant challenges for regulators and supervisors. There’s a popular saying that the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, but the realist adjusts the sails. As a regulator with hard-won experience of developing frameworks, building the teams to implement them, and deploying technology to combat financial crime and address misconduct, I’m very much a realist – albeit one who remains stubbornly optimistic. I don’t believe it’s an either/or scenario.  Put simply, I believe in the potential benefits of innovation and technology for consumers, investors, businesses and society – and want to see them realised. But this also means the risks must be effectively managed – we must, as it were, adjust the sails. The importance of collective responsesThe risks, of course, need no explanation to this audience. The anonymity of virtual assets can be used to transfer illicit funds quickly and across borders, with criminals increasingly leveraging new technologies to commit fraud, launder the proceeds of crime, and carry out financing of terrorism. The speed at which funds can be moved across borders makes it easier for criminals to exploit the financial system. And so on. Last month, the Central Bank of Ireland published statistics showing the value of fraud in payments in Ireland increased by a quarter in 2023 compared to 2022 – from €100m to circa €126m.1  Fraud was highest in credit transfers and card payments, with the biggest growth seen in money remittance. This echoes trends across Europe, with a joint EBA/ECB report in August 2024 revealing that fraud losses are highest in credit transfer and card payments across the European Economic Area (EEA).2Financial crime, of course, recognises no borders. And so, given the scale of the challenge which regulators and law enforcement agencies face, collective action – a harmonised response - is imperative. Which is why the EU’s AML package is so important – it provides the framework and the agency (AMLA) through which we will collectively meet the challenge head on. The AML package is by design technology neutral.  It applies to traditional banking/financial models equally as it applies to crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), crowd-funding platforms and intermediaries.  It obliges all types of firms that come within its ambit to comply with a set of AML/CFT rules that have now been harmonised across Europe.  How these firms comply with the rules is up to them, via traditional AML/CFT compliance programmes or by using regtech tools. What’s essential is that the means used are effective, and that such effectiveness can be demonstrated to supervisors. This will be the case both for the 40 obliged entities that will be directly supervised by AMLA and the firms supervised by national AML authorities.3  Not waiting for the wind to change, the EU has addressed a number of emerging risks in the package. To give some examples, the use of AI is acknowledged under the package, with an obligation on firms to ensure that human oversight is applied to decisions proposed by AI tools that may impact customers in certain areas.Additionally, details of Virtual IBANs which are linked to other payment accounts will have to be recorded in member states’ Bank Account Registers. This will allow law enforcement to trace any funds being moved by such Virtual IBANs.  Finally, the package introduces the concept of Information Sharing Partnerships. Through these, credit and financial institutions will be enabled to share information relating to high risk customers, subject to important guardrails including data protection assessments.  The lack of an ability to share such information has long been pointed to as a real weak link in the system, which could allow someone who had an account closed by one bank on ML/TF grounds to seek to open an account in another.  It is hoped that these partnerships will be a real game-changer in the fight to keep bad actors from accessing the financial system in order to launder ill-gotten gains.  Tech solutions, including tools which can allow information to be shared between financial institutions in a manner that complies with GDPR, will be essential here.The package is also forward-looking in respect of sanctions. Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine exposed some fault lines in the EU’s Financial Sanctions Framework.  The package seeks to remedy this by imposing obligations on obliged entities to put in place frameworks to prevent and detect attempted breaches of EU financial sanctions. It also requires obliged entities to ensure that prospective customers, and any person who owns or controls such prospective customers, are screened against the financial sanctions list prior to onboarding.  Here again, we see the importance of effective technological solutions - the use of screening tools will be imperative for firms seeking to protect themselves from the possibility of breaching sanctions.Developing a wider approach to preventing financial crimeMoney laundering pre-supposes a predicate crime which has generated assets for a criminal. Looking more widely across the landscape, more work is required to put in place a comprehensive financial crime preventative framework that includes fraud.   The EU and member states have started thinking about fraud and money laundering more holistically, rather than two silos to be tackled independently. This is very welcome. For our part, the Central Bank of Ireland is approaching AML, fraud, and sanctions through the lens of financial integrity of the system. We are building out a more integrated supervisory framework to look at risk in a more holistic way. We want to take a whole-of-sector, rather than piecemeal, approach, and so very much support emerging EU thinking in this area. As a single market and economic and political union, the EU can point to work already under way and leverage further opportunities to confront the challenges involved. Already, there are a number of other important EU developments aimed at protecting the financial integrity of the system and the citizens who depend on it. PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation will strengthen customer authentication rules and extending refund rights of consumers who have fallen victim to fraud, among other measures. The EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCAR) includes rules relating to the information to be made available to prospective investors in crypto assets, partly in response to the proliferation of scams involving crypto asset issuance. The amended Fund Transfer Regulation ensures that transfers of crypto assets by CASPs must now be accompanied by information on the sender and recipient, in the same way that credit transfers between banks must be.  The Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) obliges providers of standard and instant credit transfers to verify the payee at no additional charge to the payer. It also obliges PSPs offering instant credit transfers to screen their customer base against targeted financial sanctions lists at least daily. The various regulatory and policy developments to tackle financial crime cannot succeed in isolation. For this reason, supervisors have been on a steady march away from reliance on traditional supervisory tools and are increasingly exploring ways to transform technology from an enabler of financial crime to a tool in the detection, disruption and successful prosecution of financial crime. In that context, I’d like to mention a significant milestone in the Central Bank of Ireland’s innovation journey - the launch of our Innovation Sandbox Programme last December on the specific theme of Combatting Financial Crime. About the sandboxThis initiative offers a structured environment for firms to develop innovative solutions in a collaborative environment, ensuring that new technologies are introduced safely and effectively into the financial sector.The seven participants in the programme are employing new technologies and innovative methods to develop solutions that tackle financial crime, for the benefit of both the financial system and consumers.Participants are representative of a diverse spectrum of innovators from Ireland, across Europe and the UK and feature start-ups, scaling firms, partnerships and established financial services firms.Although it is still at an early stage in the programme, several key areas of focus have been identified such as:The use of AI, machine learning, and pattern recognition to detect and prevent fraud; andThe use of technology to enable data sharing without compromising sensitive information, allowing real-time verification of identities and other credentials while ensuring full compliance with data protection regulations and the development of digital identity verification tools.The Central Bank is organising workshops for participating firms on specific topics relevant to theme of combating financial crime, facilitating bespoke engagement with dedicated relationship managers, and providing access to a data platform offering data sets and tools relevant to the theme. This will allow participants to test and develop their innovation. We are hugely excited about the programme and look forward to sharing the results of it in due course. ConclusionIn conclusion, I was greatly struck by something Elizabeth McCaul of the ECB Supervisory Board previously said: “Technology is fundamentally a human activity… technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so.”4 The reality is that no piece of legislation can contemplate every financial crime risk or typology or close every loophole. We can’t wipe out financial crime – any more than we can wipe out car theft, shoplifting or burglary. But what we can do is to become as effective as possible at reducing its impact.Hence, as technology evolves, it behoves regulators and supervisors to evolve too - continually adapting to keep pace with these changes and ensure that, collectively and individually, we are the forefront of protecting the integrity of the financial system and those who use it. Thank you.[1] Behind the Data – Insights from Irish Payment Fraud Statistics[2] EBA and ECB 2024 Report on Payment Fraud[3] The 40 obliged entities will comprise the highest risk entities operating across the EU and at least one entity from each Member State.[4]ECB Supervisory board - Technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so 

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be with you today and to address a topic so crucial to the future of financial services: the utilisation of innovation and technology to conduct – and most importantly, combat – financial crime. In the mid to late ’90s, when email truly took off as a global tool for commerce, I was a barrister working for the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service amongst others, dealing with various criminal cases including serious frauds. Justified enthusiasm about the ability to connect the world more effectively and efficiently was subsequently dampened somewhat by use of the technology for all manner of deceptions, frauds and financial crimes. Several decades later, we see the same pattern playing out in real-time with artificial intelligence, with criminals using AI tools to bypass customer due diligence controls and carry out fraud via social engineering. These sophisticated methods, including the use of AI tools via text, images, and voice, present significant challenges for regulators and supervisors. There’s a popular saying that the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, but the realist adjusts the sails. As a regulator with hard-won experience of developing frameworks, building the teams to implement them, and deploying technology to combat financial crime and address misconduct, I’m very much a realist – albeit one who remains stubbornly optimistic. I don’t believe it’s an either/or scenario.  Put simply, I believe in the potential benefits of innovation and technology for consumers, investors, businesses and society – and want to see them realised. But this also means the risks must be effectively managed – we must, as it were, adjust the sails. The importance of collective responsesThe risks, of course, need no explanation to this audience. The anonymity of virtual assets can be used to transfer illicit funds quickly and across borders, with criminals increasingly leveraging new technologies to commit fraud, launder the proceeds of crime, and carry out financing of terrorism. The speed at which funds can be moved across borders makes it easier for criminals to exploit the financial system. And so on. Last month, the Central Bank of Ireland published statistics showing the value of fraud in payments in Ireland increased by a quarter in 2023 compared to 2022 – from €100m to circa €126m.1  Fraud was highest in credit transfers and card payments, with the biggest growth seen in money remittance. This echoes trends across Europe, with a joint EBA/ECB report in August 2024 revealing that fraud losses are highest in credit transfer and card payments across the European Economic Area (EEA).2Financial crime, of course, recognises no borders. And so, given the scale of the challenge which regulators and law enforcement agencies face, collective action – a harmonised response - is imperative. Which is why the EU’s AML package is so important – it provides the framework and the agency (AMLA) through which we will collectively meet the challenge head on. The AML package is by design technology neutral.  It applies to traditional banking/financial models equally as it applies to crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), crowd-funding platforms and intermediaries.  It obliges all types of firms that come within its ambit to comply with a set of AML/CFT rules that have now been harmonised across Europe.  How these firms comply with the rules is up to them, via traditional AML/CFT compliance programmes or by using regtech tools. What’s essential is that the means used are effective, and that such effectiveness can be demonstrated to supervisors. This will be the case both for the 40 obliged entities that will be directly supervised by AMLA and the firms supervised by national AML authorities.3  Not waiting for the wind to change, the EU has addressed a number of emerging risks in the package. To give some examples, the use of AI is acknowledged under the package, with an obligation on firms to ensure that human oversight is applied to decisions proposed by AI tools that may impact customers in certain areas.Additionally, details of Virtual IBANs which are linked to other payment accounts will have to be recorded in member states’ Bank Account Registers. This will allow law enforcement to trace any funds being moved by such Virtual IBANs.  Finally, the package introduces the concept of Information Sharing Partnerships. Through these, credit and financial institutions will be enabled to share information relating to high risk customers, subject to important guardrails including data protection assessments.  The lack of an ability to share such information has long been pointed to as a real weak link in the system, which could allow someone who had an account closed by one bank on ML/TF grounds to seek to open an account in another.  It is hoped that these partnerships will be a real game-changer in the fight to keep bad actors from accessing the financial system in order to launder ill-gotten gains.  Tech solutions, including tools which can allow information to be shared between financial institutions in a manner that complies with GDPR, will be essential here.The package is also forward-looking in respect of sanctions. Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine exposed some fault lines in the EU’s Financial Sanctions Framework.  The package seeks to remedy this by imposing obligations on obliged entities to put in place frameworks to prevent and detect attempted breaches of EU financial sanctions. It also requires obliged entities to ensure that prospective customers, and any person who owns or controls such prospective customers, are screened against the financial sanctions list prior to onboarding.  Here again, we see the importance of effective technological solutions - the use of screening tools will be imperative for firms seeking to protect themselves from the possibility of breaching sanctions.Developing a wider approach to preventing financial crimeMoney laundering pre-supposes a predicate crime which has generated assets for a criminal. Looking more widely across the landscape, more work is required to put in place a comprehensive financial crime preventative framework that includes fraud.   The EU and member states have started thinking about fraud and money laundering more holistically, rather than two silos to be tackled independently. This is very welcome. For our part, the Central Bank of Ireland is approaching AML, fraud, and sanctions through the lens of financial integrity of the system. We are building out a more integrated supervisory framework to look at risk in a more holistic way. We want to take a whole-of-sector, rather than piecemeal, approach, and so very much support emerging EU thinking in this area. As a single market and economic and political union, the EU can point to work already under way and leverage further opportunities to confront the challenges involved. Already, there are a number of other important EU developments aimed at protecting the financial integrity of the system and the citizens who depend on it. PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation will strengthen customer authentication rules and extending refund rights of consumers who have fallen victim to fraud, among other measures. The EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCAR) includes rules relating to the information to be made available to prospective investors in crypto assets, partly in response to the proliferation of scams involving crypto asset issuance. The amended Fund Transfer Regulation ensures that transfers of crypto assets by CASPs must now be accompanied by information on the sender and recipient, in the same way that credit transfers between banks must be.  The Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) obliges providers of standard and instant credit transfers to verify the payee at no additional charge to the payer. It also obliges PSPs offering instant credit transfers to screen their customer base against targeted financial sanctions lists at least daily. The various regulatory and policy developments to tackle financial crime cannot succeed in isolation. For this reason, supervisors have been on a steady march away from reliance on traditional supervisory tools and are increasingly exploring ways to transform technology from an enabler of financial crime to a tool in the detection, disruption and successful prosecution of financial crime. In that context, I’d like to mention a significant milestone in the Central Bank of Ireland’s innovation journey - the launch of our Innovation Sandbox Programme last December on the specific theme of Combatting Financial Crime. About the sandboxThis initiative offers a structured environment for firms to develop innovative solutions in a collaborative environment, ensuring that new technologies are introduced safely and effectively into the financial sector.The seven participants in the programme are employing new technologies and innovative methods to develop solutions that tackle financial crime, for the benefit of both the financial system and consumers.Participants are representative of a diverse spectrum of innovators from Ireland, across Europe and the UK and feature start-ups, scaling firms, partnerships and established financial services firms.Although it is still at an early stage in the programme, several key areas of focus have been identified such as:The use of AI, machine learning, and pattern recognition to detect and prevent fraud; andThe use of technology to enable data sharing without compromising sensitive information, allowing real-time verification of identities and other credentials while ensuring full compliance with data protection regulations and the development of digital identity verification tools.The Central Bank is organising workshops for participating firms on specific topics relevant to theme of combating financial crime, facilitating bespoke engagement with dedicated relationship managers, and providing access to a data platform offering data sets and tools relevant to the theme. This will allow participants to test and develop their innovation. We are hugely excited about the programme and look forward to sharing the results of it in due course. ConclusionIn conclusion, I was greatly struck by something Elizabeth McCaul of the ECB Supervisory Board previously said: “Technology is fundamentally a human activity… technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so.”4 The reality is that no piece of legislation can contemplate every financial crime risk or typology or close every loophole. We can’t wipe out financial crime – any more than we can wipe out car theft, shoplifting or burglary. But what we can do is to become as effective as possible at reducing its impact.Hence, as technology evolves, it behoves regulators and supervisors to evolve too - continually adapting to keep pace with these changes and ensure that, collectively and individually, we are the forefront of protecting the integrity of the financial system and those who use it. Thank you.[1] Behind the Data – Insights from Irish Payment Fraud Statistics[2] EBA and ECB 2024 Report on Payment Fraud[3] The 40 obliged entities will comprise the highest risk entities operating across the EU and at least one entity from each Member State.[4]ECB Supervisory board - Technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so 

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be with you today and to address a topic so crucial to the future of financial services: the utilisation of innovation and technology to conduct – and most importantly, combat – financial crime. In the mid to late ’90s, when email truly took off as a global tool for commerce, I was a barrister working for the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service amongst others, dealing with various criminal cases including serious frauds. Justified enthusiasm about the ability to connect the world more effectively and efficiently was subsequently dampened somewhat by use of the technology for all manner of deceptions, frauds and financial crimes. Several decades later, we see the same pattern playing out in real-time with artificial intelligence, with criminals using AI tools to bypass customer due diligence controls and carry out fraud via social engineering. These sophisticated methods, including the use of AI tools via text, images, and voice, present significant challenges for regulators and supervisors. There’s a popular saying that the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, but the realist adjusts the sails. As a regulator with hard-won experience of developing frameworks, building the teams to implement them, and deploying technology to combat financial crime and address misconduct, I’m very much a realist – albeit one who remains stubbornly optimistic. I don’t believe it’s an either/or scenario.  Put simply, I believe in the potential benefits of innovation and technology for consumers, investors, businesses and society – and want to see them realised. But this also means the risks must be effectively managed – we must, as it were, adjust the sails. The importance of collective responsesThe risks, of course, need no explanation to this audience. The anonymity of virtual assets can be used to transfer illicit funds quickly and across borders, with criminals increasingly leveraging new technologies to commit fraud, launder the proceeds of crime, and carry out financing of terrorism. The speed at which funds can be moved across borders makes it easier for criminals to exploit the financial system. And so on. Last month, the Central Bank of Ireland published statistics showing the value of fraud in payments in Ireland increased by a quarter in 2023 compared to 2022 – from €100m to circa €126m.1  Fraud was highest in credit transfers and card payments, with the biggest growth seen in money remittance. This echoes trends across Europe, with a joint EBA/ECB report in August 2024 revealing that fraud losses are highest in credit transfer and card payments across the European Economic Area (EEA).2Financial crime, of course, recognises no borders. And so, given the scale of the challenge which regulators and law enforcement agencies face, collective action – a harmonised response - is imperative. Which is why the EU’s AML package is so important – it provides the framework and the agency (AMLA) through which we will collectively meet the challenge head on. The AML package is by design technology neutral.  It applies to traditional banking/financial models equally as it applies to crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), crowd-funding platforms and intermediaries.  It obliges all types of firms that come within its ambit to comply with a set of AML/CFT rules that have now been harmonised across Europe.  How these firms comply with the rules is up to them, via traditional AML/CFT compliance programmes or by using regtech tools. What’s essential is that the means used are effective, and that such effectiveness can be demonstrated to supervisors. This will be the case both for the 40 obliged entities that will be directly supervised by AMLA and the firms supervised by national AML authorities.3  Not waiting for the wind to change, the EU has addressed a number of emerging risks in the package. To give some examples, the use of AI is acknowledged under the package, with an obligation on firms to ensure that human oversight is applied to decisions proposed by AI tools that may impact customers in certain areas.Additionally, details of Virtual IBANs which are linked to other payment accounts will have to be recorded in member states’ Bank Account Registers. This will allow law enforcement to trace any funds being moved by such Virtual IBANs.  Finally, the package introduces the concept of Information Sharing Partnerships. Through these, credit and financial institutions will be enabled to share information relating to high risk customers, subject to important guardrails including data protection assessments.  The lack of an ability to share such information has long been pointed to as a real weak link in the system, which could allow someone who had an account closed by one bank on ML/TF grounds to seek to open an account in another.  It is hoped that these partnerships will be a real game-changer in the fight to keep bad actors from accessing the financial system in order to launder ill-gotten gains.  Tech solutions, including tools which can allow information to be shared between financial institutions in a manner that complies with GDPR, will be essential here.The package is also forward-looking in respect of sanctions. Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine exposed some fault lines in the EU’s Financial Sanctions Framework.  The package seeks to remedy this by imposing obligations on obliged entities to put in place frameworks to prevent and detect attempted breaches of EU financial sanctions. It also requires obliged entities to ensure that prospective customers, and any person who owns or controls such prospective customers, are screened against the financial sanctions list prior to onboarding.  Here again, we see the importance of effective technological solutions - the use of screening tools will be imperative for firms seeking to protect themselves from the possibility of breaching sanctions.Developing a wider approach to preventing financial crimeMoney laundering pre-supposes a predicate crime which has generated assets for a criminal. Looking more widely across the landscape, more work is required to put in place a comprehensive financial crime preventative framework that includes fraud.   The EU and member states have started thinking about fraud and money laundering more holistically, rather than two silos to be tackled independently. This is very welcome. For our part, the Central Bank of Ireland is approaching AML, fraud, and sanctions through the lens of financial integrity of the system. We are building out a more integrated supervisory framework to look at risk in a more holistic way. We want to take a whole-of-sector, rather than piecemeal, approach, and so very much support emerging EU thinking in this area. As a single market and economic and political union, the EU can point to work already under way and leverage further opportunities to confront the challenges involved. Already, there are a number of other important EU developments aimed at protecting the financial integrity of the system and the citizens who depend on it. PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation will strengthen customer authentication rules and extending refund rights of consumers who have fallen victim to fraud, among other measures. The EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCAR) includes rules relating to the information to be made available to prospective investors in crypto assets, partly in response to the proliferation of scams involving crypto asset issuance. The amended Fund Transfer Regulation ensures that transfers of crypto assets by CASPs must now be accompanied by information on the sender and recipient, in the same way that credit transfers between banks must be.  The Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) obliges providers of standard and instant credit transfers to verify the payee at no additional charge to the payer. It also obliges PSPs offering instant credit transfers to screen their customer base against targeted financial sanctions lists at least daily. The various regulatory and policy developments to tackle financial crime cannot succeed in isolation. For this reason, supervisors have been on a steady march away from reliance on traditional supervisory tools and are increasingly exploring ways to transform technology from an enabler of financial crime to a tool in the detection, disruption and successful prosecution of financial crime. In that context, I’d like to mention a significant milestone in the Central Bank of Ireland’s innovation journey - the launch of our Innovation Sandbox Programme last December on the specific theme of Combatting Financial Crime. About the sandboxThis initiative offers a structured environment for firms to develop innovative solutions in a collaborative environment, ensuring that new technologies are introduced safely and effectively into the financial sector.The seven participants in the programme are employing new technologies and innovative methods to develop solutions that tackle financial crime, for the benefit of both the financial system and consumers.Participants are representative of a diverse spectrum of innovators from Ireland, across Europe and the UK and feature start-ups, scaling firms, partnerships and established financial services firms.Although it is still at an early stage in the programme, several key areas of focus have been identified such as:The use of AI, machine learning, and pattern recognition to detect and prevent fraud; andThe use of technology to enable data sharing without compromising sensitive information, allowing real-time verification of identities and other credentials while ensuring full compliance with data protection regulations and the development of digital identity verification tools.The Central Bank is organising workshops for participating firms on specific topics relevant to theme of combating financial crime, facilitating bespoke engagement with dedicated relationship managers, and providing access to a data platform offering data sets and tools relevant to the theme. This will allow participants to test and develop their innovation. We are hugely excited about the programme and look forward to sharing the results of it in due course. ConclusionIn conclusion, I was greatly struck by something Elizabeth McCaul of the ECB Supervisory Board previously said: “Technology is fundamentally a human activity… technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so.”4 The reality is that no piece of legislation can contemplate every financial crime risk or typology or close every loophole. We can’t wipe out financial crime – any more than we can wipe out car theft, shoplifting or burglary. But what we can do is to become as effective as possible at reducing its impact.Hence, as technology evolves, it behoves regulators and supervisors to evolve too - continually adapting to keep pace with these changes and ensure that, collectively and individually, we are the forefront of protecting the integrity of the financial system and those who use it. Thank you.[1] Behind the Data – Insights from Irish Payment Fraud Statistics[2] EBA and ECB 2024 Report on Payment Fraud[3] The 40 obliged entities will comprise the highest risk entities operating across the EU and at least one entity from each Member State.[4]ECB Supervisory board - Technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so 

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be with you today and to address a topic so crucial to the future of financial services: the utilisation of innovation and technology to conduct – and most importantly, combat – financial crime. In the mid to late ’90s, when email truly took off as a global tool for commerce, I was a barrister working for the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service amongst others, dealing with various criminal cases including serious frauds. Justified enthusiasm about the ability to connect the world more effectively and efficiently was subsequently dampened somewhat by use of the technology for all manner of deceptions, frauds and financial crimes. Several decades later, we see the same pattern playing out in real-time with artificial intelligence, with criminals using AI tools to bypass customer due diligence controls and carry out fraud via social engineering. These sophisticated methods, including the use of AI tools via text, images, and voice, present significant challenges for regulators and supervisors. There’s a popular saying that the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, but the realist adjusts the sails. As a regulator with hard-won experience of developing frameworks, building the teams to implement them, and deploying technology to combat financial crime and address misconduct, I’m very much a realist – albeit one who remains stubbornly optimistic. I don’t believe it’s an either/or scenario.  Put simply, I believe in the potential benefits of innovation and technology for consumers, investors, businesses and society – and want to see them realised. But this also means the risks must be effectively managed – we must, as it were, adjust the sails. The importance of collective responsesThe risks, of course, need no explanation to this audience. The anonymity of virtual assets can be used to transfer illicit funds quickly and across borders, with criminals increasingly leveraging new technologies to commit fraud, launder the proceeds of crime, and carry out financing of terrorism. The speed at which funds can be moved across borders makes it easier for criminals to exploit the financial system. And so on. Last month, the Central Bank of Ireland published statistics showing the value of fraud in payments in Ireland increased by a quarter in 2023 compared to 2022 – from €100m to circa €126m.1  Fraud was highest in credit transfers and card payments, with the biggest growth seen in money remittance. This echoes trends across Europe, with a joint EBA/ECB report in August 2024 revealing that fraud losses are highest in credit transfer and card payments across the European Economic Area (EEA).2Financial crime, of course, recognises no borders. And so, given the scale of the challenge which regulators and law enforcement agencies face, collective action – a harmonised response - is imperative. Which is why the EU’s AML package is so important – it provides the framework and the agency (AMLA) through which we will collectively meet the challenge head on. The AML package is by design technology neutral.  It applies to traditional banking/financial models equally as it applies to crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), crowd-funding platforms and intermediaries.  It obliges all types of firms that come within its ambit to comply with a set of AML/CFT rules that have now been harmonised across Europe.  How these firms comply with the rules is up to them, via traditional AML/CFT compliance programmes or by using regtech tools. What’s essential is that the means used are effective, and that such effectiveness can be demonstrated to supervisors. This will be the case both for the 40 obliged entities that will be directly supervised by AMLA and the firms supervised by national AML authorities.3  Not waiting for the wind to change, the EU has addressed a number of emerging risks in the package. To give some examples, the use of AI is acknowledged under the package, with an obligation on firms to ensure that human oversight is applied to decisions proposed by AI tools that may impact customers in certain areas.Additionally, details of Virtual IBANs which are linked to other payment accounts will have to be recorded in member states’ Bank Account Registers. This will allow law enforcement to trace any funds being moved by such Virtual IBANs.  Finally, the package introduces the concept of Information Sharing Partnerships. Through these, credit and financial institutions will be enabled to share information relating to high risk customers, subject to important guardrails including data protection assessments.  The lack of an ability to share such information has long been pointed to as a real weak link in the system, which could allow someone who had an account closed by one bank on ML/TF grounds to seek to open an account in another.  It is hoped that these partnerships will be a real game-changer in the fight to keep bad actors from accessing the financial system in order to launder ill-gotten gains.  Tech solutions, including tools which can allow information to be shared between financial institutions in a manner that complies with GDPR, will be essential here.The package is also forward-looking in respect of sanctions. Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine exposed some fault lines in the EU’s Financial Sanctions Framework.  The package seeks to remedy this by imposing obligations on obliged entities to put in place frameworks to prevent and detect attempted breaches of EU financial sanctions. It also requires obliged entities to ensure that prospective customers, and any person who owns or controls such prospective customers, are screened against the financial sanctions list prior to onboarding.  Here again, we see the importance of effective technological solutions - the use of screening tools will be imperative for firms seeking to protect themselves from the possibility of breaching sanctions.Developing a wider approach to preventing financial crimeMoney laundering pre-supposes a predicate crime which has generated assets for a criminal. Looking more widely across the landscape, more work is required to put in place a comprehensive financial crime preventative framework that includes fraud.   The EU and member states have started thinking about fraud and money laundering more holistically, rather than two silos to be tackled independently. This is very welcome. For our part, the Central Bank of Ireland is approaching AML, fraud, and sanctions through the lens of financial integrity of the system. We are building out a more integrated supervisory framework to look at risk in a more holistic way. We want to take a whole-of-sector, rather than piecemeal, approach, and so very much support emerging EU thinking in this area. As a single market and economic and political union, the EU can point to work already under way and leverage further opportunities to confront the challenges involved. Already, there are a number of other important EU developments aimed at protecting the financial integrity of the system and the citizens who depend on it. PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation will strengthen customer authentication rules and extending refund rights of consumers who have fallen victim to fraud, among other measures. The EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCAR) includes rules relating to the information to be made available to prospective investors in crypto assets, partly in response to the proliferation of scams involving crypto asset issuance. The amended Fund Transfer Regulation ensures that transfers of crypto assets by CASPs must now be accompanied by information on the sender and recipient, in the same way that credit transfers between banks must be.  The Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) obliges providers of standard and instant credit transfers to verify the payee at no additional charge to the payer. It also obliges PSPs offering instant credit transfers to screen their customer base against targeted financial sanctions lists at least daily. The various regulatory and policy developments to tackle financial crime cannot succeed in isolation. For this reason, supervisors have been on a steady march away from reliance on traditional supervisory tools and are increasingly exploring ways to transform technology from an enabler of financial crime to a tool in the detection, disruption and successful prosecution of financial crime. In that context, I’d like to mention a significant milestone in the Central Bank of Ireland’s innovation journey - the launch of our Innovation Sandbox Programme last December on the specific theme of Combatting Financial Crime. About the sandboxThis initiative offers a structured environment for firms to develop innovative solutions in a collaborative environment, ensuring that new technologies are introduced safely and effectively into the financial sector.The seven participants in the programme are employing new technologies and innovative methods to develop solutions that tackle financial crime, for the benefit of both the financial system and consumers.Participants are representative of a diverse spectrum of innovators from Ireland, across Europe and the UK and feature start-ups, scaling firms, partnerships and established financial services firms.Although it is still at an early stage in the programme, several key areas of focus have been identified such as:The use of AI, machine learning, and pattern recognition to detect and prevent fraud; andThe use of technology to enable data sharing without compromising sensitive information, allowing real-time verification of identities and other credentials while ensuring full compliance with data protection regulations and the development of digital identity verification tools.The Central Bank is organising workshops for participating firms on specific topics relevant to theme of combating financial crime, facilitating bespoke engagement with dedicated relationship managers, and providing access to a data platform offering data sets and tools relevant to the theme. This will allow participants to test and develop their innovation. We are hugely excited about the programme and look forward to sharing the results of it in due course. ConclusionIn conclusion, I was greatly struck by something Elizabeth McCaul of the ECB Supervisory Board previously said: “Technology is fundamentally a human activity… technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so.”4 The reality is that no piece of legislation can contemplate every financial crime risk or typology or close every loophole. We can’t wipe out financial crime – any more than we can wipe out car theft, shoplifting or burglary. But what we can do is to become as effective as possible at reducing its impact.Hence, as technology evolves, it behoves regulators and supervisors to evolve too - continually adapting to keep pace with these changes and ensure that, collectively and individually, we are the forefront of protecting the integrity of the financial system and those who use it. Thank you.[1] Behind the Data – Insights from Irish Payment Fraud Statistics[2] EBA and ECB 2024 Report on Payment Fraud[3] The 40 obliged entities will comprise the highest risk entities operating across the EU and at least one entity from each Member State.[4]ECB Supervisory board - Technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so 

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be with you today and to address a topic so crucial to the future of financial services: the utilisation of innovation and technology to conduct – and most importantly, combat – financial crime. In the mid to late ’90s, when email truly took off as a global tool for commerce, I was a barrister working for the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service amongst others, dealing with various criminal cases including serious frauds. Justified enthusiasm about the ability to connect the world more effectively and efficiently was subsequently dampened somewhat by use of the technology for all manner of deceptions, frauds and financial crimes. Several decades later, we see the same pattern playing out in real-time with artificial intelligence, with criminals using AI tools to bypass customer due diligence controls and carry out fraud via social engineering. These sophisticated methods, including the use of AI tools via text, images, and voice, present significant challenges for regulators and supervisors. There’s a popular saying that the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, but the realist adjusts the sails. As a regulator with hard-won experience of developing frameworks, building the teams to implement them, and deploying technology to combat financial crime and address misconduct, I’m very much a realist – albeit one who remains stubbornly optimistic. I don’t believe it’s an either/or scenario.  Put simply, I believe in the potential benefits of innovation and technology for consumers, investors, businesses and society – and want to see them realised. But this also means the risks must be effectively managed – we must, as it were, adjust the sails. The importance of collective responsesThe risks, of course, need no explanation to this audience. The anonymity of virtual assets can be used to transfer illicit funds quickly and across borders, with criminals increasingly leveraging new technologies to commit fraud, launder the proceeds of crime, and carry out financing of terrorism. The speed at which funds can be moved across borders makes it easier for criminals to exploit the financial system. And so on. Last month, the Central Bank of Ireland published statistics showing the value of fraud in payments in Ireland increased by a quarter in 2023 compared to 2022 – from €100m to circa €126m.1  Fraud was highest in credit transfers and card payments, with the biggest growth seen in money remittance. This echoes trends across Europe, with a joint EBA/ECB report in August 2024 revealing that fraud losses are highest in credit transfer and card payments across the European Economic Area (EEA).2Financial crime, of course, recognises no borders. And so, given the scale of the challenge which regulators and law enforcement agencies face, collective action – a harmonised response - is imperative. Which is why the EU’s AML package is so important – it provides the framework and the agency (AMLA) through which we will collectively meet the challenge head on. The AML package is by design technology neutral.  It applies to traditional banking/financial models equally as it applies to crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), crowd-funding platforms and intermediaries.  It obliges all types of firms that come within its ambit to comply with a set of AML/CFT rules that have now been harmonised across Europe.  How these firms comply with the rules is up to them, via traditional AML/CFT compliance programmes or by using regtech tools. What’s essential is that the means used are effective, and that such effectiveness can be demonstrated to supervisors. This will be the case both for the 40 obliged entities that will be directly supervised by AMLA and the firms supervised by national AML authorities.3  Not waiting for the wind to change, the EU has addressed a number of emerging risks in the package. To give some examples, the use of AI is acknowledged under the package, with an obligation on firms to ensure that human oversight is applied to decisions proposed by AI tools that may impact customers in certain areas.Additionally, details of Virtual IBANs which are linked to other payment accounts will have to be recorded in member states’ Bank Account Registers. This will allow law enforcement to trace any funds being moved by such Virtual IBANs.  Finally, the package introduces the concept of Information Sharing Partnerships. Through these, credit and financial institutions will be enabled to share information relating to high risk customers, subject to important guardrails including data protection assessments.  The lack of an ability to share such information has long been pointed to as a real weak link in the system, which could allow someone who had an account closed by one bank on ML/TF grounds to seek to open an account in another.  It is hoped that these partnerships will be a real game-changer in the fight to keep bad actors from accessing the financial system in order to launder ill-gotten gains.  Tech solutions, including tools which can allow information to be shared between financial institutions in a manner that complies with GDPR, will be essential here.The package is also forward-looking in respect of sanctions. Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine exposed some fault lines in the EU’s Financial Sanctions Framework.  The package seeks to remedy this by imposing obligations on obliged entities to put in place frameworks to prevent and detect attempted breaches of EU financial sanctions. It also requires obliged entities to ensure that prospective customers, and any person who owns or controls such prospective customers, are screened against the financial sanctions list prior to onboarding.  Here again, we see the importance of effective technological solutions - the use of screening tools will be imperative for firms seeking to protect themselves from the possibility of breaching sanctions.Developing a wider approach to preventing financial crimeMoney laundering pre-supposes a predicate crime which has generated assets for a criminal. Looking more widely across the landscape, more work is required to put in place a comprehensive financial crime preventative framework that includes fraud.   The EU and member states have started thinking about fraud and money laundering more holistically, rather than two silos to be tackled independently. This is very welcome. For our part, the Central Bank of Ireland is approaching AML, fraud, and sanctions through the lens of financial integrity of the system. We are building out a more integrated supervisory framework to look at risk in a more holistic way. We want to take a whole-of-sector, rather than piecemeal, approach, and so very much support emerging EU thinking in this area. As a single market and economic and political union, the EU can point to work already under way and leverage further opportunities to confront the challenges involved. Already, there are a number of other important EU developments aimed at protecting the financial integrity of the system and the citizens who depend on it. PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation will strengthen customer authentication rules and extending refund rights of consumers who have fallen victim to fraud, among other measures. The EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCAR) includes rules relating to the information to be made available to prospective investors in crypto assets, partly in response to the proliferation of scams involving crypto asset issuance. The amended Fund Transfer Regulation ensures that transfers of crypto assets by CASPs must now be accompanied by information on the sender and recipient, in the same way that credit transfers between banks must be.  The Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) obliges providers of standard and instant credit transfers to verify the payee at no additional charge to the payer. It also obliges PSPs offering instant credit transfers to screen their customer base against targeted financial sanctions lists at least daily. The various regulatory and policy developments to tackle financial crime cannot succeed in isolation. For this reason, supervisors have been on a steady march away from reliance on traditional supervisory tools and are increasingly exploring ways to transform technology from an enabler of financial crime to a tool in the detection, disruption and successful prosecution of financial crime. In that context, I’d like to mention a significant milestone in the Central Bank of Ireland’s innovation journey - the launch of our Innovation Sandbox Programme last December on the specific theme of Combatting Financial Crime. About the sandboxThis initiative offers a structured environment for firms to develop innovative solutions in a collaborative environment, ensuring that new technologies are introduced safely and effectively into the financial sector.The seven participants in the programme are employing new technologies and innovative methods to develop solutions that tackle financial crime, for the benefit of both the financial system and consumers.Participants are representative of a diverse spectrum of innovators from Ireland, across Europe and the UK and feature start-ups, scaling firms, partnerships and established financial services firms.Although it is still at an early stage in the programme, several key areas of focus have been identified such as:The use of AI, machine learning, and pattern recognition to detect and prevent fraud; andThe use of technology to enable data sharing without compromising sensitive information, allowing real-time verification of identities and other credentials while ensuring full compliance with data protection regulations and the development of digital identity verification tools.The Central Bank is organising workshops for participating firms on specific topics relevant to theme of combating financial crime, facilitating bespoke engagement with dedicated relationship managers, and providing access to a data platform offering data sets and tools relevant to the theme. This will allow participants to test and develop their innovation. We are hugely excited about the programme and look forward to sharing the results of it in due course. ConclusionIn conclusion, I was greatly struck by something Elizabeth McCaul of the ECB Supervisory Board previously said: “Technology is fundamentally a human activity… technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so.”4 The reality is that no piece of legislation can contemplate every financial crime risk or typology or close every loophole. We can’t wipe out financial crime – any more than we can wipe out car theft, shoplifting or burglary. But what we can do is to become as effective as possible at reducing its impact.Hence, as technology evolves, it behoves regulators and supervisors to evolve too - continually adapting to keep pace with these changes and ensure that, collectively and individually, we are the forefront of protecting the integrity of the financial system and those who use it. Thank you.[1] Behind the Data – Insights from Irish Payment Fraud Statistics[2] EBA and ECB 2024 Report on Payment Fraud[3] The 40 obliged entities will comprise the highest risk entities operating across the EU and at least one entity from each Member State.[4]ECB Supervisory board - Technology is neither good nor bad, but humans make it so 

At our meeting yesterday, my ECB Governing Council colleagues and I decided to lower our three policy rates by 25 basis points (or one quarter of a percent). This moves our Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. Euro area inflation reduced over the course of 2024, reaching 2.4 per cent in December. Over the past year, the Governing Council has grown in confidence that there would be a gradual convergence of inflation to our 2 per cent target during 2025. However, the disinflation process remains subject to risks, and there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the outlook. We must stand ready to react to changes in the outlook, for both inflation and growth, which is why my colleagues and I continue to believe that we should not commit to any specific future path for interest rates.Assessing our monetary policy stanceOne source of uncertainty for policymakers is the interest rate at which our monetary policy stance is “neutral”. A neutral rate provides us with a benchmark against which we can judge the stance. When our policy rate is higher than the neutral rate, we have a “restrictive” stance (in other words, we are seeking to dampen aggregate demand pressures in the economy) and we have an “accommodative” stance when the policy rate is below neutral (in this case, we aim to support demand).As monetary policymakers, we choose to have a restrictive stance when our goal is to reduce inflation to our target, and to have an accommodative stance when we need to raise inflation to the target. The neutral rate can be a useful guide for policymakers, but its usefulness is also limited. As I have highlighted before, it has a wide range of plausible values and it can change over time. So our policy decisions are guided by a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of economic data which is essential to ensure consistency between our view of the implied stance and economic developments. It is also why we need to continue with our data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach.The recent high inflation period required a forceful response to ensure inflation would return to target in a timely manner. In meetings during 2022 and 2023, we raised our key interest rates by a cumulative four and a half percentage points. In effect, we moved the monetary policy stance into substantially restrictive territory; our goal was to make it sufficiently restrictive to combat the price pressures we faced.InflationOver the course of 2023 and 2024, we have seen substantial progress in disinflation, the process of getting the inflation rate back to our 2 per cent target. In September, I noted that the ECB staff projections expected inflation to hit the target by the end of 2025. The incoming data since then have been broadly consistent with that view, as were the December staff projections.Euro area inflation ticked up in the final quarter of 2024, from 1.7 per cent annually in September to 2.4 per cent in December. This increase was anticipated in recent projection exercises, largely due to energy base effects, with inflation expected to reduce once more in coming months. Nonetheless, this highlights the need to continuously evaluate the incoming data carefully ahead of each policy meeting.The monetary policy pathWith continued progress in disinflation, and with our increasing confidence that inflation will sustainably return to target well within our projection horizon (which, at the moment, is to the end of 2027), we have made a series of decisions to reduce the restrictiveness of our policy stance. Our decision yesterday reduced the Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. As I have said before, the direction of travel on interest rates has been clear, but without a commitment to any particular rate path. Why is this distinction important? In my view, we need to retain the flexibility to learn from the signals we observe in the incoming data between meetings and to adjust our thinking on the appropriate decisions, if necessary. This is the essence of taking a “meeting-by-meeting” approach to decision-making. RisksOver the course of last year, I highlighted some important risks to the disinflation process, including that services inflation and wage growth could be more persistent than anticipated. We continue to be vigilant about any derailment of the disinflation process from stubbornly high services inflation. On that front, recent months have seen some reassuring signals including from wage trackers. Recent movements in energy prices, especially for gas, will warrant vigilance.On the growth front, risks appear to be firmly to the downside in the euro area, not least as a result of geoeconomic fragmentation affecting patterns of international trade and investment. ConclusionIn my view, the high levels of uncertainty in the global environment underlines the need for prudence in our decision-making.  But underpinning yesterday’s decision was the progress in disinflation and our growing confidence that inflation would converge to target.  Some of the key data I will be looking at during this year will include trends in credit demand, firms’ investment decisions and household spending.  The Governing Council’s next monetary policy meeting is in March.Gabriel Makhlouf

At our meeting yesterday, my ECB Governing Council colleagues and I decided to lower our three policy rates by 25 basis points (or one quarter of a percent). This moves our Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. Euro area inflation reduced over the course of 2024, reaching 2.4 per cent in December. Over the past year, the Governing Council has grown in confidence that there would be a gradual convergence of inflation to our 2 per cent target during 2025. However, the disinflation process remains subject to risks, and there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the outlook. We must stand ready to react to changes in the outlook, for both inflation and growth, which is why my colleagues and I continue to believe that we should not commit to any specific future path for interest rates.Assessing our monetary policy stanceOne source of uncertainty for policymakers is the interest rate at which our monetary policy stance is “neutral”. A neutral rate provides us with a benchmark against which we can judge the stance. When our policy rate is higher than the neutral rate, we have a “restrictive” stance (in other words, we are seeking to dampen aggregate demand pressures in the economy) and we have an “accommodative” stance when the policy rate is below neutral (in this case, we aim to support demand).As monetary policymakers, we choose to have a restrictive stance when our goal is to reduce inflation to our target, and to have an accommodative stance when we need to raise inflation to the target. The neutral rate can be a useful guide for policymakers, but its usefulness is also limited. As I have highlighted before, it has a wide range of plausible values and it can change over time. So our policy decisions are guided by a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of economic data which is essential to ensure consistency between our view of the implied stance and economic developments. It is also why we need to continue with our data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach.The recent high inflation period required a forceful response to ensure inflation would return to target in a timely manner. In meetings during 2022 and 2023, we raised our key interest rates by a cumulative four and a half percentage points. In effect, we moved the monetary policy stance into substantially restrictive territory; our goal was to make it sufficiently restrictive to combat the price pressures we faced.InflationOver the course of 2023 and 2024, we have seen substantial progress in disinflation, the process of getting the inflation rate back to our 2 per cent target. In September, I noted that the ECB staff projections expected inflation to hit the target by the end of 2025. The incoming data since then have been broadly consistent with that view, as were the December staff projections.Euro area inflation ticked up in the final quarter of 2024, from 1.7 per cent annually in September to 2.4 per cent in December. This increase was anticipated in recent projection exercises, largely due to energy base effects, with inflation expected to reduce once more in coming months. Nonetheless, this highlights the need to continuously evaluate the incoming data carefully ahead of each policy meeting.The monetary policy pathWith continued progress in disinflation, and with our increasing confidence that inflation will sustainably return to target well within our projection horizon (which, at the moment, is to the end of 2027), we have made a series of decisions to reduce the restrictiveness of our policy stance. Our decision yesterday reduced the Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. As I have said before, the direction of travel on interest rates has been clear, but without a commitment to any particular rate path. Why is this distinction important? In my view, we need to retain the flexibility to learn from the signals we observe in the incoming data between meetings and to adjust our thinking on the appropriate decisions, if necessary. This is the essence of taking a “meeting-by-meeting” approach to decision-making. RisksOver the course of last year, I highlighted some important risks to the disinflation process, including that services inflation and wage growth could be more persistent than anticipated. We continue to be vigilant about any derailment of the disinflation process from stubbornly high services inflation. On that front, recent months have seen some reassuring signals including from wage trackers. Recent movements in energy prices, especially for gas, will warrant vigilance.On the growth front, risks appear to be firmly to the downside in the euro area, not least as a result of geoeconomic fragmentation affecting patterns of international trade and investment. ConclusionIn my view, the high levels of uncertainty in the global environment underlines the need for prudence in our decision-making.  But underpinning yesterday’s decision was the progress in disinflation and our growing confidence that inflation would converge to target.  Some of the key data I will be looking at during this year will include trends in credit demand, firms’ investment decisions and household spending.  The Governing Council’s next monetary policy meeting is in March.Gabriel Makhlouf

At our meeting yesterday, my ECB Governing Council colleagues and I decided to lower our three policy rates by 25 basis points (or one quarter of a percent). This moves our Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. Euro area inflation reduced over the course of 2024, reaching 2.4 per cent in December. Over the past year, the Governing Council has grown in confidence that there would be a gradual convergence of inflation to our 2 per cent target during 2025. However, the disinflation process remains subject to risks, and there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the outlook. We must stand ready to react to changes in the outlook, for both inflation and growth, which is why my colleagues and I continue to believe that we should not commit to any specific future path for interest rates.Assessing our monetary policy stanceOne source of uncertainty for policymakers is the interest rate at which our monetary policy stance is “neutral”. A neutral rate provides us with a benchmark against which we can judge the stance. When our policy rate is higher than the neutral rate, we have a “restrictive” stance (in other words, we are seeking to dampen aggregate demand pressures in the economy) and we have an “accommodative” stance when the policy rate is below neutral (in this case, we aim to support demand).As monetary policymakers, we choose to have a restrictive stance when our goal is to reduce inflation to our target, and to have an accommodative stance when we need to raise inflation to the target. The neutral rate can be a useful guide for policymakers, but its usefulness is also limited. As I have highlighted before, it has a wide range of plausible values and it can change over time. So our policy decisions are guided by a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of economic data which is essential to ensure consistency between our view of the implied stance and economic developments. It is also why we need to continue with our data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach.The recent high inflation period required a forceful response to ensure inflation would return to target in a timely manner. In meetings during 2022 and 2023, we raised our key interest rates by a cumulative four and a half percentage points. In effect, we moved the monetary policy stance into substantially restrictive territory; our goal was to make it sufficiently restrictive to combat the price pressures we faced.InflationOver the course of 2023 and 2024, we have seen substantial progress in disinflation, the process of getting the inflation rate back to our 2 per cent target. In September, I noted that the ECB staff projections expected inflation to hit the target by the end of 2025. The incoming data since then have been broadly consistent with that view, as were the December staff projections.Euro area inflation ticked up in the final quarter of 2024, from 1.7 per cent annually in September to 2.4 per cent in December. This increase was anticipated in recent projection exercises, largely due to energy base effects, with inflation expected to reduce once more in coming months. Nonetheless, this highlights the need to continuously evaluate the incoming data carefully ahead of each policy meeting.The monetary policy pathWith continued progress in disinflation, and with our increasing confidence that inflation will sustainably return to target well within our projection horizon (which, at the moment, is to the end of 2027), we have made a series of decisions to reduce the restrictiveness of our policy stance. Our decision yesterday reduced the Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. As I have said before, the direction of travel on interest rates has been clear, but without a commitment to any particular rate path. Why is this distinction important? In my view, we need to retain the flexibility to learn from the signals we observe in the incoming data between meetings and to adjust our thinking on the appropriate decisions, if necessary. This is the essence of taking a “meeting-by-meeting” approach to decision-making. RisksOver the course of last year, I highlighted some important risks to the disinflation process, including that services inflation and wage growth could be more persistent than anticipated. We continue to be vigilant about any derailment of the disinflation process from stubbornly high services inflation. On that front, recent months have seen some reassuring signals including from wage trackers. Recent movements in energy prices, especially for gas, will warrant vigilance.On the growth front, risks appear to be firmly to the downside in the euro area, not least as a result of geoeconomic fragmentation affecting patterns of international trade and investment. ConclusionIn my view, the high levels of uncertainty in the global environment underlines the need for prudence in our decision-making.  But underpinning yesterday’s decision was the progress in disinflation and our growing confidence that inflation would converge to target.  Some of the key data I will be looking at during this year will include trends in credit demand, firms’ investment decisions and household spending.  The Governing Council’s next monetary policy meeting is in March.Gabriel Makhlouf

At our meeting yesterday, my ECB Governing Council colleagues and I decided to lower our three policy rates by 25 basis points (or one quarter of a percent). This moves our Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. Euro area inflation reduced over the course of 2024, reaching 2.4 per cent in December. Over the past year, the Governing Council has grown in confidence that there would be a gradual convergence of inflation to our 2 per cent target during 2025. However, the disinflation process remains subject to risks, and there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the outlook. We must stand ready to react to changes in the outlook, for both inflation and growth, which is why my colleagues and I continue to believe that we should not commit to any specific future path for interest rates.Assessing our monetary policy stanceOne source of uncertainty for policymakers is the interest rate at which our monetary policy stance is “neutral”. A neutral rate provides us with a benchmark against which we can judge the stance. When our policy rate is higher than the neutral rate, we have a “restrictive” stance (in other words, we are seeking to dampen aggregate demand pressures in the economy) and we have an “accommodative” stance when the policy rate is below neutral (in this case, we aim to support demand).As monetary policymakers, we choose to have a restrictive stance when our goal is to reduce inflation to our target, and to have an accommodative stance when we need to raise inflation to the target. The neutral rate can be a useful guide for policymakers, but its usefulness is also limited. As I have highlighted before, it has a wide range of plausible values and it can change over time. So our policy decisions are guided by a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of economic data which is essential to ensure consistency between our view of the implied stance and economic developments. It is also why we need to continue with our data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach.The recent high inflation period required a forceful response to ensure inflation would return to target in a timely manner. In meetings during 2022 and 2023, we raised our key interest rates by a cumulative four and a half percentage points. In effect, we moved the monetary policy stance into substantially restrictive territory; our goal was to make it sufficiently restrictive to combat the price pressures we faced.InflationOver the course of 2023 and 2024, we have seen substantial progress in disinflation, the process of getting the inflation rate back to our 2 per cent target. In September, I noted that the ECB staff projections expected inflation to hit the target by the end of 2025. The incoming data since then have been broadly consistent with that view, as were the December staff projections.Euro area inflation ticked up in the final quarter of 2024, from 1.7 per cent annually in September to 2.4 per cent in December. This increase was anticipated in recent projection exercises, largely due to energy base effects, with inflation expected to reduce once more in coming months. Nonetheless, this highlights the need to continuously evaluate the incoming data carefully ahead of each policy meeting.The monetary policy pathWith continued progress in disinflation, and with our increasing confidence that inflation will sustainably return to target well within our projection horizon (which, at the moment, is to the end of 2027), we have made a series of decisions to reduce the restrictiveness of our policy stance. Our decision yesterday reduced the Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. As I have said before, the direction of travel on interest rates has been clear, but without a commitment to any particular rate path. Why is this distinction important? In my view, we need to retain the flexibility to learn from the signals we observe in the incoming data between meetings and to adjust our thinking on the appropriate decisions, if necessary. This is the essence of taking a “meeting-by-meeting” approach to decision-making. RisksOver the course of last year, I highlighted some important risks to the disinflation process, including that services inflation and wage growth could be more persistent than anticipated. We continue to be vigilant about any derailment of the disinflation process from stubbornly high services inflation. On that front, recent months have seen some reassuring signals including from wage trackers. Recent movements in energy prices, especially for gas, will warrant vigilance.On the growth front, risks appear to be firmly to the downside in the euro area, not least as a result of geoeconomic fragmentation affecting patterns of international trade and investment. ConclusionIn my view, the high levels of uncertainty in the global environment underlines the need for prudence in our decision-making.  But underpinning yesterday’s decision was the progress in disinflation and our growing confidence that inflation would converge to target.  Some of the key data I will be looking at during this year will include trends in credit demand, firms’ investment decisions and household spending.  The Governing Council’s next monetary policy meeting is in March.Gabriel Makhlouf

At our meeting yesterday, my ECB Governing Council colleagues and I decided to lower our three policy rates by 25 basis points (or one quarter of a percent). This moves our Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. Euro area inflation reduced over the course of 2024, reaching 2.4 per cent in December. Over the past year, the Governing Council has grown in confidence that there would be a gradual convergence of inflation to our 2 per cent target during 2025. However, the disinflation process remains subject to risks, and there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the outlook. We must stand ready to react to changes in the outlook, for both inflation and growth, which is why my colleagues and I continue to believe that we should not commit to any specific future path for interest rates.Assessing our monetary policy stanceOne source of uncertainty for policymakers is the interest rate at which our monetary policy stance is “neutral”. A neutral rate provides us with a benchmark against which we can judge the stance. When our policy rate is higher than the neutral rate, we have a “restrictive” stance (in other words, we are seeking to dampen aggregate demand pressures in the economy) and we have an “accommodative” stance when the policy rate is below neutral (in this case, we aim to support demand).As monetary policymakers, we choose to have a restrictive stance when our goal is to reduce inflation to our target, and to have an accommodative stance when we need to raise inflation to the target. The neutral rate can be a useful guide for policymakers, but its usefulness is also limited. As I have highlighted before, it has a wide range of plausible values and it can change over time. So our policy decisions are guided by a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of economic data which is essential to ensure consistency between our view of the implied stance and economic developments. It is also why we need to continue with our data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach.The recent high inflation period required a forceful response to ensure inflation would return to target in a timely manner. In meetings during 2022 and 2023, we raised our key interest rates by a cumulative four and a half percentage points. In effect, we moved the monetary policy stance into substantially restrictive territory; our goal was to make it sufficiently restrictive to combat the price pressures we faced.InflationOver the course of 2023 and 2024, we have seen substantial progress in disinflation, the process of getting the inflation rate back to our 2 per cent target. In September, I noted that the ECB staff projections expected inflation to hit the target by the end of 2025. The incoming data since then have been broadly consistent with that view, as were the December staff projections.Euro area inflation ticked up in the final quarter of 2024, from 1.7 per cent annually in September to 2.4 per cent in December. This increase was anticipated in recent projection exercises, largely due to energy base effects, with inflation expected to reduce once more in coming months. Nonetheless, this highlights the need to continuously evaluate the incoming data carefully ahead of each policy meeting.The monetary policy pathWith continued progress in disinflation, and with our increasing confidence that inflation will sustainably return to target well within our projection horizon (which, at the moment, is to the end of 2027), we have made a series of decisions to reduce the restrictiveness of our policy stance. Our decision yesterday reduced the Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. As I have said before, the direction of travel on interest rates has been clear, but without a commitment to any particular rate path. Why is this distinction important? In my view, we need to retain the flexibility to learn from the signals we observe in the incoming data between meetings and to adjust our thinking on the appropriate decisions, if necessary. This is the essence of taking a “meeting-by-meeting” approach to decision-making. RisksOver the course of last year, I highlighted some important risks to the disinflation process, including that services inflation and wage growth could be more persistent than anticipated. We continue to be vigilant about any derailment of the disinflation process from stubbornly high services inflation. On that front, recent months have seen some reassuring signals including from wage trackers. Recent movements in energy prices, especially for gas, will warrant vigilance.On the growth front, risks appear to be firmly to the downside in the euro area, not least as a result of geoeconomic fragmentation affecting patterns of international trade and investment. ConclusionIn my view, the high levels of uncertainty in the global environment underlines the need for prudence in our decision-making.  But underpinning yesterday’s decision was the progress in disinflation and our growing confidence that inflation would converge to target.  Some of the key data I will be looking at during this year will include trends in credit demand, firms’ investment decisions and household spending.  The Governing Council’s next monetary policy meeting is in March.Gabriel Makhlouf

At our meeting yesterday, my ECB Governing Council colleagues and I decided to lower our three policy rates by 25 basis points (or one quarter of a percent). This moves our Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. Euro area inflation reduced over the course of 2024, reaching 2.4 per cent in December. Over the past year, the Governing Council has grown in confidence that there would be a gradual convergence of inflation to our 2 per cent target during 2025. However, the disinflation process remains subject to risks, and there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the outlook. We must stand ready to react to changes in the outlook, for both inflation and growth, which is why my colleagues and I continue to believe that we should not commit to any specific future path for interest rates.Assessing our monetary policy stanceOne source of uncertainty for policymakers is the interest rate at which our monetary policy stance is “neutral”. A neutral rate provides us with a benchmark against which we can judge the stance. When our policy rate is higher than the neutral rate, we have a “restrictive” stance (in other words, we are seeking to dampen aggregate demand pressures in the economy) and we have an “accommodative” stance when the policy rate is below neutral (in this case, we aim to support demand).As monetary policymakers, we choose to have a restrictive stance when our goal is to reduce inflation to our target, and to have an accommodative stance when we need to raise inflation to the target. The neutral rate can be a useful guide for policymakers, but its usefulness is also limited. As I have highlighted before, it has a wide range of plausible values and it can change over time. So our policy decisions are guided by a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of economic data which is essential to ensure consistency between our view of the implied stance and economic developments. It is also why we need to continue with our data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach.The recent high inflation period required a forceful response to ensure inflation would return to target in a timely manner. In meetings during 2022 and 2023, we raised our key interest rates by a cumulative four and a half percentage points. In effect, we moved the monetary policy stance into substantially restrictive territory; our goal was to make it sufficiently restrictive to combat the price pressures we faced.InflationOver the course of 2023 and 2024, we have seen substantial progress in disinflation, the process of getting the inflation rate back to our 2 per cent target. In September, I noted that the ECB staff projections expected inflation to hit the target by the end of 2025. The incoming data since then have been broadly consistent with that view, as were the December staff projections.Euro area inflation ticked up in the final quarter of 2024, from 1.7 per cent annually in September to 2.4 per cent in December. This increase was anticipated in recent projection exercises, largely due to energy base effects, with inflation expected to reduce once more in coming months. Nonetheless, this highlights the need to continuously evaluate the incoming data carefully ahead of each policy meeting.The monetary policy pathWith continued progress in disinflation, and with our increasing confidence that inflation will sustainably return to target well within our projection horizon (which, at the moment, is to the end of 2027), we have made a series of decisions to reduce the restrictiveness of our policy stance. Our decision yesterday reduced the Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. As I have said before, the direction of travel on interest rates has been clear, but without a commitment to any particular rate path. Why is this distinction important? In my view, we need to retain the flexibility to learn from the signals we observe in the incoming data between meetings and to adjust our thinking on the appropriate decisions, if necessary. This is the essence of taking a “meeting-by-meeting” approach to decision-making. RisksOver the course of last year, I highlighted some important risks to the disinflation process, including that services inflation and wage growth could be more persistent than anticipated. We continue to be vigilant about any derailment of the disinflation process from stubbornly high services inflation. On that front, recent months have seen some reassuring signals including from wage trackers. Recent movements in energy prices, especially for gas, will warrant vigilance.On the growth front, risks appear to be firmly to the downside in the euro area, not least as a result of geoeconomic fragmentation affecting patterns of international trade and investment. ConclusionIn my view, the high levels of uncertainty in the global environment underlines the need for prudence in our decision-making.  But underpinning yesterday’s decision was the progress in disinflation and our growing confidence that inflation would converge to target.  Some of the key data I will be looking at during this year will include trends in credit demand, firms’ investment decisions and household spending.  The Governing Council’s next monetary policy meeting is in March.Gabriel Makhlouf

At our meeting yesterday, my ECB Governing Council colleagues and I decided to lower our three policy rates by 25 basis points (or one quarter of a percent). This moves our Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. Euro area inflation reduced over the course of 2024, reaching 2.4 per cent in December. Over the past year, the Governing Council has grown in confidence that there would be a gradual convergence of inflation to our 2 per cent target during 2025. However, the disinflation process remains subject to risks, and there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the outlook. We must stand ready to react to changes in the outlook, for both inflation and growth, which is why my colleagues and I continue to believe that we should not commit to any specific future path for interest rates.Assessing our monetary policy stanceOne source of uncertainty for policymakers is the interest rate at which our monetary policy stance is “neutral”. A neutral rate provides us with a benchmark against which we can judge the stance. When our policy rate is higher than the neutral rate, we have a “restrictive” stance (in other words, we are seeking to dampen aggregate demand pressures in the economy) and we have an “accommodative” stance when the policy rate is below neutral (in this case, we aim to support demand).As monetary policymakers, we choose to have a restrictive stance when our goal is to reduce inflation to our target, and to have an accommodative stance when we need to raise inflation to the target. The neutral rate can be a useful guide for policymakers, but its usefulness is also limited. As I have highlighted before, it has a wide range of plausible values and it can change over time. So our policy decisions are guided by a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of economic data which is essential to ensure consistency between our view of the implied stance and economic developments. It is also why we need to continue with our data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach.The recent high inflation period required a forceful response to ensure inflation would return to target in a timely manner. In meetings during 2022 and 2023, we raised our key interest rates by a cumulative four and a half percentage points. In effect, we moved the monetary policy stance into substantially restrictive territory; our goal was to make it sufficiently restrictive to combat the price pressures we faced.InflationOver the course of 2023 and 2024, we have seen substantial progress in disinflation, the process of getting the inflation rate back to our 2 per cent target. In September, I noted that the ECB staff projections expected inflation to hit the target by the end of 2025. The incoming data since then have been broadly consistent with that view, as were the December staff projections.Euro area inflation ticked up in the final quarter of 2024, from 1.7 per cent annually in September to 2.4 per cent in December. This increase was anticipated in recent projection exercises, largely due to energy base effects, with inflation expected to reduce once more in coming months. Nonetheless, this highlights the need to continuously evaluate the incoming data carefully ahead of each policy meeting.The monetary policy pathWith continued progress in disinflation, and with our increasing confidence that inflation will sustainably return to target well within our projection horizon (which, at the moment, is to the end of 2027), we have made a series of decisions to reduce the restrictiveness of our policy stance. Our decision yesterday reduced the Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. As I have said before, the direction of travel on interest rates has been clear, but without a commitment to any particular rate path. Why is this distinction important? In my view, we need to retain the flexibility to learn from the signals we observe in the incoming data between meetings and to adjust our thinking on the appropriate decisions, if necessary. This is the essence of taking a “meeting-by-meeting” approach to decision-making. RisksOver the course of last year, I highlighted some important risks to the disinflation process, including that services inflation and wage growth could be more persistent than anticipated. We continue to be vigilant about any derailment of the disinflation process from stubbornly high services inflation. On that front, recent months have seen some reassuring signals including from wage trackers. Recent movements in energy prices, especially for gas, will warrant vigilance.On the growth front, risks appear to be firmly to the downside in the euro area, not least as a result of geoeconomic fragmentation affecting patterns of international trade and investment. ConclusionIn my view, the high levels of uncertainty in the global environment underlines the need for prudence in our decision-making.  But underpinning yesterday’s decision was the progress in disinflation and our growing confidence that inflation would converge to target.  Some of the key data I will be looking at during this year will include trends in credit demand, firms’ investment decisions and household spending.  The Governing Council’s next monetary policy meeting is in March.Gabriel Makhlouf

At our meeting yesterday, my ECB Governing Council colleagues and I decided to lower our three policy rates by 25 basis points (or one quarter of a percent). This moves our Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. Euro area inflation reduced over the course of 2024, reaching 2.4 per cent in December. Over the past year, the Governing Council has grown in confidence that there would be a gradual convergence of inflation to our 2 per cent target during 2025. However, the disinflation process remains subject to risks, and there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the outlook. We must stand ready to react to changes in the outlook, for both inflation and growth, which is why my colleagues and I continue to believe that we should not commit to any specific future path for interest rates.Assessing our monetary policy stanceOne source of uncertainty for policymakers is the interest rate at which our monetary policy stance is “neutral”. A neutral rate provides us with a benchmark against which we can judge the stance. When our policy rate is higher than the neutral rate, we have a “restrictive” stance (in other words, we are seeking to dampen aggregate demand pressures in the economy) and we have an “accommodative” stance when the policy rate is below neutral (in this case, we aim to support demand).As monetary policymakers, we choose to have a restrictive stance when our goal is to reduce inflation to our target, and to have an accommodative stance when we need to raise inflation to the target. The neutral rate can be a useful guide for policymakers, but its usefulness is also limited. As I have highlighted before, it has a wide range of plausible values and it can change over time. So our policy decisions are guided by a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of economic data which is essential to ensure consistency between our view of the implied stance and economic developments. It is also why we need to continue with our data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach.The recent high inflation period required a forceful response to ensure inflation would return to target in a timely manner. In meetings during 2022 and 2023, we raised our key interest rates by a cumulative four and a half percentage points. In effect, we moved the monetary policy stance into substantially restrictive territory; our goal was to make it sufficiently restrictive to combat the price pressures we faced.InflationOver the course of 2023 and 2024, we have seen substantial progress in disinflation, the process of getting the inflation rate back to our 2 per cent target. In September, I noted that the ECB staff projections expected inflation to hit the target by the end of 2025. The incoming data since then have been broadly consistent with that view, as were the December staff projections.Euro area inflation ticked up in the final quarter of 2024, from 1.7 per cent annually in September to 2.4 per cent in December. This increase was anticipated in recent projection exercises, largely due to energy base effects, with inflation expected to reduce once more in coming months. Nonetheless, this highlights the need to continuously evaluate the incoming data carefully ahead of each policy meeting.The monetary policy pathWith continued progress in disinflation, and with our increasing confidence that inflation will sustainably return to target well within our projection horizon (which, at the moment, is to the end of 2027), we have made a series of decisions to reduce the restrictiveness of our policy stance. Our decision yesterday reduced the Deposit Facility Rate to 2.75 per cent. As I have said before, the direction of travel on interest rates has been clear, but without a commitment to any particular rate path. Why is this distinction important? In my view, we need to retain the flexibility to learn from the signals we observe in the incoming data between meetings and to adjust our thinking on the appropriate decisions, if necessary. This is the essence of taking a “meeting-by-meeting” approach to decision-making. RisksOver the course of last year, I highlighted some important risks to the disinflation process, including that services inflation and wage growth could be more persistent than anticipated. We continue to be vigilant about any derailment of the disinflation process from stubbornly high services inflation. On that front, recent months have seen some reassuring signals including from wage trackers. Recent movements in energy prices, especially for gas, will warrant vigilance.On the growth front, risks appear to be firmly to the downside in the euro area, not least as a result of geoeconomic fragmentation affecting patterns of international trade and investment. ConclusionIn my view, the high levels of uncertainty in the global environment underlines the need for prudence in our decision-making.  But underpinning yesterday’s decision was the progress in disinflation and our growing confidence that inflation would converge to target.  Some of the key data I will be looking at during this year will include trends in credit demand, firms’ investment decisions and household spending.  The Governing Council’s next monetary policy meeting is in March.Gabriel Makhlouf

The Central Bank of Ireland today (24 January) published a new Behind the Data (BTD) paper on Irish payment fraud statistics. This BTD features insights on payments fraud in 2022 and 2023 in Ireland across primary payment methods including credit transfers, card payments, e-money and direct debits.  It also examines how fraud varies across these payment methods, which types of frauds are most common, and how much money is lost to fraud.Fraudulent payments are a growing concern in Europe, especially in the rapidly evolving digital marketplace. Fraudsters continually adopt new ways to exploit digital systems and bypass security measures, costing businesses and individuals millions each year. The findings of this BTD reveal that although fraud is growing in Ireland, Irish fraud rates remain below EU averages across most payment methods with the exception of card payments. Chart: Share of main fraud types (by value), by payment methodsAround 98% of card payment fraud by value was accounted for by ‘issuance of payment orders by the fraudster’. This occurs where fraudsters use stolen card, account or personal information for a payment. ‘Manipulation of the Payer fraud’ occurs where a fraudster gains trust by social engineering or impersonation and convince the payer to make payments to them is evident in credit transfers and e-money payment. In fraudulent credit transfers, payer manipulation fraud rose from 27% in the first half of 2022 to 42% by the end of 2023.‘Unauthorised payment transactions’ is more specific to direct debits where a fraudster obtains customer information and set up mandates without the authorisation of the payer. Over 99% of all fraudulent direct debits were related to such fraud with an exception in second half of 2023 due to a once off incident recorded in this category.‘Modification of Payment order by fraudster’ occurs where a fraudster intercepts and modifies a legitimate payment order. It is rare (less than 2 % of all fraud by value) and observed only in credit transfers.Approximately 60% of the value of fraud is made through credit transfer, although these transactions only accounted for 4% of the total number of fraudulent transactions.  This reflects the fact that credit transfers are often used for large value payments compared with other payment methods in Ireland.  Credit transfer fraud amounted to €70m in 2023, with 24,000 transactions. The BTD also reveals that the proceeds from fraudulent payments are predominantly transferred to accounts located outside Ireland. Incidents of fraud are more prominent when measures such as the EU’s strong customer authentication (SCA) are not in place. The data also shows: The total value of fraudulent payments rose by 26% in 2023, increasing to €126m from €100m in 2022.The rate of fraud in Ireland as a share of all transactions is low. By value the rate is 0.001%, and by volume the rate is 0.01%. Card payment fraud rate is by far the highest among payment method, with 0.034% of card payments by value being fraudulent.Around 50% of fraud in electronic payments by value were not authenticated via Strong Customer Authentication, amounting to €52 million in 2023Online card payments made up 86% of the total value of card fraud in 2023, amounting to €37.4mThe value of money remittance frauds has more than tripled from €2.5m in 2022 to €8.2m in 2023.Approximately 60% of the total value of fraud across 2022-2023 involved cross border payments, amounting to € 77m in 2023 and € 64m in 2022.Combatting fraud in the financial system is a priority for the Central Bank, working closely with law enforcement, other State agencies and peer regulators. Where it identifies criminal activity taking place in the financial system, the Central Bank works with An Garda Siochána and other agencies who lead criminal investigations and prosecutions. In 2024, the Central Bank launched a campaign to help consumers avoid scams.  Further information on how to avoid scams is available at www.centralbank.ie/scams and consumers can call us on 0818 681 681.For information on how to avoid fraud please see: www.centralbank.ie/scams ENDSNotes to the EditorThe Central Bank intends to provide semi-annual updates on payment fraud statistics, including linking these to the wider European data publications. This will allow for more transparency in this space and allow trends to be monitored.