 (AGENPARL) - Roma, 10 Marzo 2023
 (AGENPARL) - Roma, 10 Marzo 2023(AGENPARL) – ven 10 marzo 2023 Città di Francavilla Fontana
Buongiorno,
a seguire troverete il comunicato stampa in oggetto.
COMUNICATO STAMPA
Concerto della Scuola Musicale Comunale
in occasione del 206° anniversario del corpo di polizia penitenziaria
Giovedì 23 marzo alle 10.30 nel Salone di Rappresentanza della Provincia di Brindisi docenti e allievi della Scuola Musicale Comunale “Città di Francavilla Fontana” si esibiranno in un concerto per celebrare i 206 anni dalla fondazione del Corpo di Polizia Penitenziaria.
Nei giorni scorsi il Sindaco Antonello Denuzzo ed il maestro Antonio Curto hanno incontrato la direttrice del carcere di Brindisi Valentina Meo Evoli per definire i dettagli della manifestazione che coinvolgerà attivamente le Istituzioni del territorio.
“Siamo orgogliosi – commenta il Sindaco Antonello Denuzzo – dell’invito rivolto dalla Direttrice Meo Evoli e dai vertici del corpo di polizia penitenziaria. La Scuola Musicale comunale è una istituzione cittadina che in 20 anni ha saputo farsi apprezzare per la qualità del suo operato e dell’offerta musicale. Ringrazio il maestro Antonio Curto per il suo lavoro e l’impegno fuori dal comune con cui si dedica a questa istituzione cittadina ed ai suoi allievi.”
L’iniziativa, promossa dalla Direzione della Casa Circondariale di Brindisi, rafforza il legame ormai storico con la Scuola Musicale che in diverse occasioni ha messo a disposizione la propria arte.
“Ringrazio la Direttrice Meo Evoli per aver pensato alla Scuola Musicale per questo importante appuntamento istituzionale. Con il Sindaco Denuzzo – conclude il Direttore della Scuola Musicale Antonio Curto – abbiamo condiviso senza esitazioni la proposta di un momento da dedicare al corpo della polizia penitenziaria.”
Sempre sul fronte della promozione della cultura musicale, questa volta direttamente nel carcere, è stato raggiunto un accordo tra l’AGIMUS di Francavilla Fontana e la direzione dell’istituto penitenziario per la diffusione, in diretta dall’Auditorium della Scuola Musicale, dei concerti della stagione concertistica promossa dall’associazione presieduta dal maestro Curto.
Francavilla Fontana, 10 marzo 2023
Con preghiera di pubblicazione.
Cordiali saluti
dott. Vincenzo Sardiello 
 Testo Allegato: Conference “The New Frontiers of Digital Finance”
Paolo Angelini
Rome, 10 March 2022
1	â??Traditionalâ?
I	would	argue	that	this	is	probably	the	sector	least	a�ected,	thus	far,	by	the	latest
technological developments that inspire today’s seminar. The adoption of digital
technologies	for	�nancial	market	infrastructures	started	with	the	dematerialization	of
transactions	at	a�ordable	costs,	thanks	to	their	ability	to	e�ect	a	huge	increase	in
e�ciency	(a	rise	in	the	velocity	of	circulation	of	central	bank	money).	The	next	step	was
to eliminate counterparty risk in securities transactions via the adoption of delivery
allowed investors to use real-time data for algorithmic and high-frequency trading,
which in Europe now account for about 70 per cent of all equity trades. Nowadays,
re�ecting	a	widespread	dematerialization	process,	almost	all	�nancial	assets	are	in
digital form and traded through electronic platforms; all wholesale payments are
Algorithmic trading implements order and trade decisions electronically and autonomously (without
orders are submitted and trades executed at high speed, usually microseconds, and a very tight
 This said, the innovation pipeline is by
no means empty. In the time allotted I shall review some recent developments
of the “traditional” type, and devote some remarks to the debate on DLT-based
In Europe, the RTGS world has been evolving rapidly. In 2018 the Eurosystem
and their clients – corporates and households alike – to transfer funds within seconds,
around the clock, 365 days a year. The Eurosystem charges banks well below one cent per
transaction. The project’s quality is widely acknowledged, as witnessed by the Sveriges
Riksbank’s decision to join TIPS with its currency, and by the intention to follow suit
enhance
and	modernize	the	services	o�ered	by	TARGET2.	The	new	system	features	the	ISO
20022 messaging standard (as in T2S and TIPS), a centralised liquidity management
that	will	make	it	more	cost-e�ective	and	e�cient,
 and can facilitate payments in
several currencies, if other central banks decide to join the system.
A third example is
the creation of the Eurosystem Collateral Management System (ECMS), a multi-year
project that started in December 2017 and is expected to go live in April next year.
The ECMS will replace the current fragmented and decentralised structure for the
management of collateral – de facto a patchwork of domestic systems. It will allow
participants to assess and move collateral on a domestic and cross-border basis, and
seamlessly across the euro area.
added	to	TARGET2,	implementing	a	safer	and	more	e�cient	securities	settlement.
It	should	also	be	acknowledged	that,	at	least	in	some	speci�c	instances,	the	digital	revolution	has	been
a mixed blessing. Consider e.g. algorithmic and high-frequency trading: in normal conditions they may
risk	aversion	and	market	instability,	or	generate	â??�ash	crashesâ?	â??	episodes	of	sudden	and	large	price
A centralised liquidity management tool will function via the so-called “Main Cash Account” (MCA)
that participants can open with a national central bank. This account will be linked to the participant’s
MCA	will	also	o�er	a	dashboard	for	a	centralised	overview	of	liquidity	positions	and	advanced	liquidity
management tools, with a higher level of automation. The liquidity held on dedicated cash accounts
will be considered for minimum reserve purposes without the need for the accounts holder to transfer
2	The
the novelties brought about by Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) like blockchains.
international	fora	that	are	working	to	de�ne	global	regulatory	standards	for	these	markets,
including the Financial Stability Board, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and
proposing principles and benchmarks for supervised intermediaries and entities falling
Coming	to	DLTs	use	for	�nancial	market	infrastructure,	two	main	types	of	claims
have been made. According to early-hour proponents of DLTs, the technology has the
potential	to	do	away	with	�nancial	intermediaries	and	their	trust-building	role:	the	very
key features of the technology – the distributed nature of the ledger, the “impossibility”
for any single user to tamper with the records once validated – pave the way to a world
with	a	greatly	diminished	role	for	intermediaries.	This	â??decentralized	�nanceâ?	(DeFi)	view
emphasizes	the	self-tending	nature	of	DLTs,	i.e.	their	ability	to	work	without	a	subject	in
charge of managing the system. In this context, reference is often made to the so-called
A	di�erent	view	holds	that	DLTs	can	improve	the	e�ciency	of	�nancial	market
infrastructure,	reduce	the	time	needed	for	reconciliation	and	back-o�ce	activities,	o�er
high performance and programmability thanks to the use of so-called ‘smart contracts’.
In	this	case	the	emphasis	is	not	on	the	DLT	governance	but	rather	on	the	bene�ts	that
can	stem	from	the	technology,	independently	of	whether	or	not	a	�nancial	intermediary
is in charge of it.
Let	me	express	some	scepticism	about	the	former	view.	One	way	or	another,
counterparty	risk	would	�nd	its	way	into	a	fully	decentralized	large	scale	trading	and
 This is because these systems, to be scaled up, need in practice
some	centralized	infrastructure	(e.g.	exchanges)	to	provide	various	services	(e.g.
storage of tokens and cryptographic keys, trade, conversion into other tokens or hard
…). In other words, DeFi, beyond a certain operational scale, is forced to
reintroduce the infrastructure that it was supposed to eliminate. And several episodes
have shown that this infrastructure is prone to various risks (cyber and fraud risk in
Communication	by	Banca	dâ??Italia	on	Decentralized	Technology	in	Finance	and	Crypto-assets
, Rome,
See	e.g.	the	insightful	discussion	by	F.	Schar,	â??Decentralized	Finance:	On	Blockchain-	and	Smart
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis REVIEW, second quarter 2021,
particular),	just	like	the	traditional	one.	Once	this	is	acknowledged,	DeFi	schemes	lose
The second view cannot be easily dismissed. It is undisputable that DLTs have useful
Bank of Italy (through our Milano Hub, the innovation centre created to support the
digital	evolution	of	Italian	�nancial	system)	launched	a	speci�c	call	for	proposals	on	DLT
applications	in	�nance,	insurance	and	payments.	We	received
57	projects,	submitted	by
82 participants. We are currently evaluating them. While the majority of projects comes
from Italian entities, a non-negligible share comes from other European countries and
 So the issue becomes an empirical one: is large scale DLT adoption in
 I believe these are important questions. While it is not for central banks to answer
them, I think that they provide a strong motivation for the central banking community’s
and	settlement	systems.	For	instance,	TARGET2	o�ers	e�cient	and	secure	settlement	in
central bank money, but it would be unable, without the development of ad hoc interfaces
in	DVP	mode	using	tokenized	commercial	bank	money.	These	exciting	developments
o�er	an	opportunity	to	test	the	DLT	and	get	practical	feedback	about	its	bene�ts	(and
disadvantages). In my view, however, DVP in central bank money is no longer optional
The list of snags could go on. Permissionless DLT systems must continuously generate enough fees
for anonymous validators to ensure the integrity of the ledger in the absence of a central authority.
Ultimately,	this	creates	signi�cant	ine�ciencies	and	risks	for	users.	For	example,	when	the	value	of
Luna	went	to	zero	in	the	recent	Terra-Luna	collapse,	the	incentive	for	miners	to	validate	transactions
evaporated (as they were remunerated in Luna units), and the blockchain stopped for several
hours.	A	similar	problem	could	materialize	for	any	blockchain	managing	securities.	See	P.	Lee,	â??Has
tokenizationâ??s	time	�nally	come?â?,	Euromoney,	March	03,	2023.	In	DLTs	based	on	proof	of	work,
mining is highly energy- and hardware-intensive; this has tended to concentrate mining activity, with
the attendant risk of collusion and forks. DLTs relying on proof of stake tend to concentrate decisions
on few holders of governance tokens, reintroducing the governance problems that are typical of
Banca d’Italia is actively promoting research on the topic of ‘smart contracts’ including their implications
on cyber-security. A
Memorandum of Understanding
 was recently signed with Roma Tre University
This	is	just	one	of	many	possible	examples	of	the	ferment	around	new	technologies	in	�nance.
According	to	a	market	sounding	recently	conducted	by	the	ECB	among	banks,	�nancial	market
infrastructure	operators	and	new	�ntech	�rms,	about	70%	of	participants	expect	a	signi�cant	industry
uptake of new technologies, such as DLTs, in the next 5 to10 years; views are mixed on the relative
merits of DLTs compared with existing technologies, as well as on the expected timing of DLT adoption.
Potential	use	of	new	technologies	for	the	settlement	of	wholesale	�nancial	transactions	in
bring us back to the seventies, when the term Herstatt risk (a form of counterparty risk)
For this reason, the central banking community is working to develop a form of
that	such	solution	is	a	necessary	condition	â??	although	certainly	not	a	su�cient	one	â??	for
The Eurosystem is currently exploring two main architectural models: a wholesale
CBDC	service	fully	based	on	DLTs,	with	tokenized	central	bank	money	issuance	(so
“cash on DLT”) and an interface component integrating DLT platforms with current
With	the	caveat	that	this	is	genuine	work	in	progress,	the	�rst	model	(cash	on	DLT),
however ingenious, presents operational complexities and could increase the overall
 Furthermore, the presence of two segregated wholesale
one	for	each	tokenized	market/security)	would	stoke	risks	of	liquidity	fragmentation,
jeopardizing	the	optimization	e�ort	undertaken	by	the	Eurosystem	with	the	T2-T2S
system in central bank money and one or more external private DLT platforms handling
tokenized	digital	assets.	Compared	to	the	�rst	model,	such	a	solution	would	not	create
reduce adaptation costs and implementation time, and would likely be less vulnerable to
Banca d’Italia has successfully experimented a version of this second model,
centred on TIPS. In a nutshell, the prototype provides a DLT-agnostic protocol to
synchronize	the	asset-leg	and	the	cash-leg	of	a	tokenized	asset,	making	an	instantaneous
payment	transaction	possible	on	a	24/7	basis.	The	paper	documenting
3	Concluding
To	conclude,	I	believe	that,	concerning	large-scale	DLT	adoption	for	�nancial
requires actions by central banks, and is still under investigation. Solid evidence
about	actual	bene�ts	of	DLT	adoption	for	�nancial	market	infrastructure	(in	terms	of
M.	Nardelli	and	C.	Oliviero,	â??
Systems series, no. 26, July 2022.
increased	e�ciency,	security,
â?¦)	is	not	yet	available.	Actually,	a	prominent	project	to
move a securities exchange to the DLT technology was recently brought to a halt by the
Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), after seven years of work and a sunk cost of about
â?¬250	million.	On	the	other	hand,	according	to	market	estimates,	global	spending	on
blockchain-based solutions, while currently negligible, has been steadily growing (from
$	1	billion	in	2017	to	19	billion	in
2022).	Market	interest	in	asset	tokenization	is	also
DLT developments may have been held back by the lack of a sound legislative
framework. In the EU, an important stimulus could come from the DLT Pilot Regime
Regulation,	which	aims	to	foster	innovation	in	the	processing	of	tokenized	securities.
Banca d’Italia is cooperating with the Italian Ministry of Finance and Consob for a swift
