EPC CHAIR

Michael Salmony 0:12

Hello, my name is Michael Salmony and I'd like to introduce you to another episode of the Payments Trilogue. Actually, this is a special one. This is a transition ⁓ Payments Trilogue because we have a guest who we may actually see a little bit more of in future. It's Javier Santamaria, which many of you in the payments world will know. And maybe I can pass straight to him to maybe introduce yourself, Javier.

Javier 0:37

Okay, thank you, Michael, and thanks also to Ralf and Gijs for allowing me to join this distinguished group. Well, I think my first reflection would be that I think I am progressing. Unlike Gijs, who is regressing, because we have exchanged roles, he has succeeded me in chairing the EPC.

And now I am free and I can enjoy more liberty and less responsibility. So that's why I think I am progressing in this payments life while I think that Gijs will have a tougher situation because he will be getting more responsibility on EPC matters and therefore enjoying less liberty in giving opinions on payments like in this Trilog or Tetralog production. So...

After having spent 13 years as chair of the EPC, I think it was time to provoke or to be succeeded. I'm very happy that Gijs volunteered and he's taking that role. So before chairing the EPC, I was in banking, but for the last eight years, I have been an independent. And I think that I have

materialized that independence and I'm not anymore a banking person strictly speaking. So my opinions will be my own and coming from different angles. There is a generally accepted payments profession principle, a gap, that states that payments professionals are very much opinionated. That is not my case, so I hold strong opinions on some matters

On some other side I'm very mild and on others I'm very weak and I have no opinion at all on some matters even having to do with payments. I don't know, I'm very happy to be here, nervous because I'm not used to this kind of interaction but I hope that it will work. So thank you for the nice welcome and I hope I will bring some value to the discussions.

Michael Salmony 3:04

I'm sure you will Javier. It's always been a pleasure working with you in the past. We've known each other for, I don't know, 10, 20 years and you've done a great job running the EPC. So it's really great to see you here again. So maybe, Gijs, you can say how you're feeling now, to hand, taking up the baton.

Gijs Boudewijn 3:19

⁓

Thank you and welcome, Javier. And it's so good that you agreed to take my place. For me, indeed, it's the other way around. I was supposed to become a free man because I'm retiring from my daytime job, ⁓ but I took on foolishly another job after my retirement, which is replacing you as chair of

the EPC. For me, that is not a regression, but a progression, I must say, because I think ⁓ if you're a European payments nerd, this is about as good as it gets in payments being the chair of the European Payments Council, especially in the current dynamic geopolitical context. But we may come back to that. So it's extremely grateful for what you've done for the past 13 years. And I am, of course, extremely proud that

the EPC membership elected me as your chair. And I'm well.

The is that in my old job, even though I was sort of bound to more the supply side of the payments market, because the banks and the payment institutions are my members, I always felt sort of free to have verbal fights with Ralf and the likes of Ralf on the other side, on the dark side of whatever we want to call it, from each other, and have nice and controversial discussions. What I need to learn now is being in the new capacity as...

indeed also independent chair of EPC, that I will have to become neutral. And that is, course, for a podcast like this with Ralf. Not much fun if I can't disagree with him anymore. But say, yes, Ralf, you're right. I hear what you say, Ralf. Hmm, that's not us. So it's good that you now have your hands untied and say whatever you like, because I have to be now more neutral in my new position. So thanks a lot.

and I'm extremely proud that you took over.

Michael Salmony 5:27

So congratulations, Gijs, on your new position. Then you'll not only be representing the Dutch banks, but four or 5,000 European banks. That's a really big challenge, and I'm sure you'll find, make new enemies in your new roles. We wish you the best for that. So, Ralf, how does it feel to not have your best friend, best challenger, best enemy around in this podcast?

Gijs Boudewijn 5:40

I will find no- but also I hope more friends than enemies that-

Ralf Ohlhausen 5:52

Yeah,

well, losing my best enemy on this one here is really somewhat sad. But I guess the real reason is that he's just giving up because he never managed to persuade me of his views. but yeah, looking forward Javier to having you here and giving it a try. Now we have had of course

a lot of discussions and not just here, but also for the last 10 years, I guess it was one of the reasons for starting this podcast here because I mean Gijs and I we spent like, I don't know, years and years in hotel bars and never agree a thing and but the the really like the bad times where which was when sort of PSD2 then came along or implemented when things got very heated. That is past.

And from our perspective or fintech's perspective, also, especially the TPP's perspective, we are more into a collaboration mode. as also with Gijs and I have sort of grown to become friends and well, have a bit of respect for each other's opinion and that it usually has a reason and some rationale behind it, even if they are different. so I think

Nevertheless, of course, the purpose here is a bit to show where we agree, where we disagree, so that maybe ⁓ regulation could be minimized because we really very much hope that with this market trilogue, here we can replace a little bit of the political trilogue and reduce the overall regulation and maybe focus it to where we actually disagree. Because there is more

agreement actually than many think. And that's why we hope that we can contribute this here. And of course you with ⁓ with your background. And yeah, I know you're a bit more independent than Gijs has been now in the past, but I still well basically treat you as the banker and and try to ⁓

Gijs Boudewijn 8:04

⁓

Ralf Ohlhausen 8:08

Well, we'll exchange the arguments probably very much from that angle. But let's see. And but as Michael said in our very first episode, he's then the one who will tell the truth.

Michael Salmony 8:19

That's my role here. Yeah. So thank you for that. And really good to see that we can continue the theme of trying to explore where actually we agree and where maybe the regulator in the few cases where the regulator needs to step in where where a disagreement exists. But let's bring it back to a sort of wider context without the individual people. What we wanted to use this opportunity for was to look at EU payments for the last.

10, 20 years and maybe what the next 10, 20 years I get to bring. With changing of the EPC heads, maybe this is a good opportunity. So maybe Javier, you can share, maybe you can just revisit how was it during your tenancy at the EPC? What were the highlights and lowlights? Can you give us a bit of a perspective there?

Javier 9:06

Well, can illustrate some tales. Ralf mentioned that you have held strong and hot debates here in this trilogue. Nothing comparable to the beginning of the EPC with all the European banks and associations in the earlier stages. Those were really heated debates, strong ones, lasting...

far beyond the scheduled time, so we were entering the late evening in many cases. So those were the early times, which were not easy, tough times for the EPC, but we managed to learn how to get to a consensus. I will bring a memory of something that ⁓ I think is something that happened in the past, but has very deep roots and is still

needs probably to flower and fructify, which is something that I could say is serendipitous because it's a of serendipity at the EPC, which was the choice of having ISO 20022 and XML and all that. Because I think we have never realized the importance of that choice, which was fortunate, but was not really intended in the sense that we knew.

what was going to happen. I think it was out of need. ⁓ ISO 20022 was not used in any country in Europe, so there was no privileged community in developing anything on those standards. That's the reason why I think those standards were chosen in the first instance. So we didn't realize the importance of that fact.

In fact, in those times, the tests and trials that have been made didn't advise to use those standards because at the very beginning, the developers learned that it was messy, it consumed a lot of resources, computer resources, and that the first tests didn't advise to go that way. But nevertheless, because I think we were forced by circumstances to choose those standards, we did. And we have never exploited

the vast richness and capacities and capabilities those standards provide. And probably we will still need time to realize that and to really extend the usage of ISO 20022 in the future. So far, we have used that potential in a very limited way. So there is much more to be done and probably more in the B2B environment with, I don't know, documents and invoices.

Gijs Boudewijn 11:53

you

Javier 12:02

traveling together with payment transactions and many things that can be done which are not yet generalized or even known by the users themselves. So I think that's something that, ⁓ as I said, came out of serendipity from the EPC, out of need. We didn't realize that. And I think it will have even further implications in the future. So that's something I remember well.

because the debates really didn't have to do with the matter, with the standards. It was just that we needed some neutral point where to arrive so that there was no national community being privileged with any chosen standard. And because those standards were not used in the world, we decided to use them. So that was the reason it was not a smart decision. I think it was just out of necessity.

Gijs Boudewijn 12:56

Thank

Javier 13:01

But I think that was, it will reveal even much more value for the European industry in the future.

Michael Salmony 13:09

Wonderful. I mean, for those who don't, for those listeners who don't know, the EPC defines standards and rule books. It doesn't operate schemes or issue cards or anything like that. It is a very large banking organization, but it sort of sets out common rules, rules in Europe. And I think you've seen some changes like you've had to, don't know, but you admitted also non-banks into your fold, right? I think that was a major change, which I was also involved in at the time.

So maybe, Gijs, it'd interesting to hear from you what you've been in this journey for a while. What do you see in the future? mean, just from my perspective, it looks like stable coins and tokenization is going to disrupt the payment space a great deal. There are some people who say it shouldn't only be the EPC. It shouldn't only focus on payment because it's all connected. Like Javier was saying, how about thinking about invoices and maybe identity and other stuff. So what is your view, Gijs, of what the future may bring?

Gijs Boudewijn 13:51

Yeah

you

⁓ Well, back to the future first, because I have to say something nasty to Ralf or about Ralf. I mean, in the early days, EPC was all well and fine. It was just banks. And then the likes of Ralf had to be allowed in. I mean, it's like stop wearing a tie when you enter the club, right? It was never the same after Ralf and his friends came in because of the regulator allowed him in.

Ralf Ohlhausen 14:34

You have adapted.

Gijs Boudewijn 14:37

And of course we adapted. So indeed, just picking up on what Javier said. When he spoke, he the choice, indeed it's a happy circumstance that we've, for all sorts of reasons, but not a very big strategic plan for Europe. This is why we choose ISO 20022 because whatever, we see far horizons of what we might do with it in a distant future.

No, it was necessity and we had to choose something and it was ISO 20022, some nerdy technical standardization thing that nobody was really interested in. But we had to choose something, right? Which was a lucky choice and that's where serendipity comes in. And if you look at it now, one good sort of comparative with an operating system, it's like Android or iOS. It's the operating system of the European payments market with much more to come.

as opposed to, let's say, the cards, rails, or the card standards, which are also ISO standards, 8,000 whatever, 8563 or something. I've never dug into that. ⁓ So, of course, I do not have a crystal ball, but when I was talking with Javier, we've been talking a lot, of course, in the transition. ⁓ This is, let's say, the third millennium for EPC, with the first millennium under

⁓ Javier's predecessor Gerard Hartsink, let's say the first 12 years, then we had 13 years. So it was really the infancy and ⁓ under Javier we became adolescents and reached sort of adulthood. And now what is next? Now we are sort of mature, okay, but now what? And of course the circumstances, all circumstances, whichever dimension you take have...

have changed over the past 13 years, especially in the current geopolitical turmoil with stable coins, with digital currencies, with geopolitical issues, with sovereignty issues, with autonomy issues. We will have a strategy session of EPC in September where all these elements will, of course, will also be on the table. I assume we are still preparing that, of course, but

The central role, the question for me then is what should the role of EPC be in this bigger ecosystem that is pretty much in turmoil from all sorts of technology competition. I also remember presentations of Javier in his early days. What are all this? We have technology, we have competition, we have regulation, etc. All these outside influences working into

something that has consequences for EPC. We know the ingredients, but not yet the recipe. We all sort of can say this is happening, that is happening, such. But it will not be a single thing that is going to determine the total outcome. It's going to be a mix of things and a balance of things. And that is the trick. So navigating these new, sometimes a little bit uncharted waters is probably going to be the next...

the next challenge for EPC, my first challenge. ⁓ And I am pretty bullish on that, because if you see what, how it started, where we are now and what is ahead of us, I can only see a pretty bright future for EPC is becoming even more the focal point of the European payments, homegrown European payment solutions, as our good friends from the Commission like to say, becoming more independent, more sovereign, more resilient.

in changing times. The iron is hot, as we say in the Netherlands, and you have to smith it. And unfortunately, but we have to, there is a lot of urgency now to do stuff we couldn't imagine a couple of years ago, or at least we have to do with much more urgency. And if you say, okay, the challenges are there, the causes of that we may not like, but these are causes, this is happening. Well, you've repeatedly said that too, if I recall correctly.

The time to act is now. We say that time and time again. The time to act is now. But I do see ⁓ as everything is coming under pressure that we have to be clever, keep our cool and make smart decisions. And I think for EPC there will be a very important role to play in the coming years in making European payments great again.

Michael Salmony 19:21

That was a very political, excellent answer. I thought you were going to dodge my question initially about what the future will be for the EPC, but you've delegated a strategy session in September. That's... ⁓

Gijs Boudewijn 19:29

No, no.

Well, there's

always a strategy session in September. That's another secret. I think, Javier, you have had many. But I do see a bright future for EPC, hopefully, of course.

Michael Salmony 19:46

Excellent. Now you were talking about three millennia that if my Latin serves me right is thousand years. So ⁓ Ralf, what do you see next? Let's say only the next century that the EPC should be doing. I mean, you're a big fan of all these nerdy things like ISO standards or NFC standards or QR standards. What are your hopes on the future of payments and the EPC?

Gijs Boudewijn 19:50

No, no, no. ⁓

It sounded good a millennium, right? ⁓

Ralf Ohlhausen 20:14

Many, very many. But if you allow me also want to have a quick look at the past because ⁓ obviously from a fintech perspective, the last what is it 20 years have been well, the first 20 years almost like so it's been ⁓ a bit of a roller coaster. Of course, actually, it's more like a rocket launch thing in many, many directions from many perspectives of many different types and kinds of fintechs.

But if I may, I want to highlight also that the TPPs go back all the way to 2003 when my friend Arturo created the first official TPP in Spain. And then soon after there was, yeah, Sofortüberweisung in Germany, et cetera, and many, many others to follow. But I think one the biggest changes from our perspective was PSD1.

So in 2007, so when the when really competition was allowed in and all these guys without ties. But that was actually before my time because I came back to Europe in 2012. But when I came back,

I actually was about one of my first things was a plan to join a project or initiative by the EPC was looking at trying to combine iDEAL and Giropay and EPS into something like something that would have become something like EPI, I guess at the time, but well, it didn't work out. That's not go through the details. But essentially, all of these discussions there were the early many discussions then on

open banking and when the whole thing was handed over to the ECB. so that's when I got involved. and of course, participating there with with all this PSD2 work. It was also though the time where, you know, we had these neo banks coming up 2010, 11, 12, 15. I think that's where Transferwise N26 Monzo or you name it, Revolut, etc.

came up and I think that was also made quite a big change. But back to home, ⁓ I think a lot of this has then led to PSD2 and we were looking really forward to it but then got somewhat disappointed in particular with the RTS as you know, I've discussed it and mentioned it here many times. So that has really been a big

Gijs Boudewijn 22:51

Yes.

Ralf Ohlhausen 22:52

problem and has led to very, very heated back and forth between banks and TPPs and Gijs and myself and others. But it has also led us to join the EPC. ⁓ And I don't want to hide that there were lot of discussions because EPIF and EMA were there before and we felt hmmm.

does this really work? But we had the impression that the EPC was really onto a mission here to move it from banks to PSPs. And therefore, I think any other alternative didn't look very ⁓ promising either. And we thought we already knew then from at the time from all these difficulties with APIs that ⁓ the future must be on collaboration, it cannot be on regulation. hence,

That's how we got there. but I think, well, to close off the past, here we are now in a situation where I think fintechs have generally had a hard time over the last couple of years. And, and also TPPs, we just brought everything to a halt in terms of growth. So we have had, you know, there was

TPPs growing, but now last quarter was the first time year of decline. So that's not good. and it is something a lot has to change still, I think. But looking back, I think we can say that a lot of more competition has come in. So we are in a different world now, 25, than we were back at the start of the millennium.

Yeah, well, before I go to the future, maybe I want to give the word back to someone else talking about future.

Michael Salmony 24:50

Javier, you haven't said something recently. How about you coming in? What you would pass on to your successor as he might want to look out for?

Javier 24:58

Okay, yeah, okay. Yeah, was listening to Ralf and Gijs, I was thinking how much the world has changed. I was referring ⁓ earlier to those times in which technical issues were the ones that we were discussing. We were ⁓ specialists in payments and in the nuances and the details of payments. And now it seems like...

everything has become political and geostrategic and we are talking about autonomy, souvereignty and things like that which I do not at all so I think we should be there as well and what I feel is that somehow because the debate has become so political that technical people are kept aside somehow so this is a debate that takes place because politicians want ⁓

to do something and then you have the administrations, the institutions leading the way and in many cases not even allowing the civil society to have a say, which I think should not happen. I think we may have to refer ⁓ in a very narrow way to payments, but even there we have to express ourselves and say what we think about souvereignty in payments and autonomy in payments.

and we should not be stolen that role in our capacity to express ourselves. I hope that Gijs will ⁓ agree with me that the EPC should maintain its voice there as well. First, I think that all this discussion about sovereignty in payments in Europe is a red herring. So we are being misled by the authorities and no proper analysis have...

have been carried out about the real issue, what's sovereignty, what's autonomy. So we should stay there. And probably there is an important role for EPC to perform a good analysis of what should be done on that very specific angle as well. ⁓ I think...

Michael Salmony 27:12

Can you just say

a word or two more about that, Javier, because that's a very surprising statement you made just then for me. ⁓ Everybody's talking about sovereignty and the is far more dependent on foreign policy. Saying that is not true.

Javier 27:21

Yeah. And nobody

has explained what the problem is, what the circumstances are, what the problems may be, what would happen, what are the alternatives. It suddenly happened that there was a big gel, souvereignty, and there was a solution being spelled by some authorities saying, this is the way we have to go.

to ⁓ get our sovereignty. But there was no proper analysis of what were the alternatives, what were the problems, what were the costs, for instance, and what the options are ahead and what would be the best ⁓ choice for our future. we have been led, ⁓ I think wrongly, into the discussion that we need to achieve autonomy and sovereignty, but we have never been ⁓ explained.

what were the problems and what the potential solutions, the alternatives and the analysis on which are the pros and the cons on each alternative. We have been given one alternative and that's all. ⁓ I can elaborate further and probably in the future we could talk about this. that's my personal feeling. I think that we are missing a thorough analysis on the circumstances. ⁓

Michael Salmony 28:30

We'll do that in another episode. Exactly. Yep.

Javier 28:43

I think, well, I thought in the past that it was an urban legend that civil servants told people that something was good for them and that they had to accept it without discussion. Well, that actually happened to me ⁓ in a debate, in a meeting with officials from central banks. I was told that it was in disagreement with something they were proposing. And I was told that they were doing that.

because of my own interest and that it was better for me. So ⁓ the only thing I could say is that I want to be free even to be mistaken and to go the wrong way. Why should I just follow what you are telling me to do without allowing me to be mistaken and recognize my errors if I made ⁓ any error? But that's in many cases the attitude you get from the institutional framework in Europe that you are supposed to accept whatever you are being told.

And that I think, and that's my recommendation and wording for Gijs as well, you shouldn't accept that. You shouldn't be just put aside by authorities because they feel that they are right and you are wrong. And in fact, one of the other reflections I have gotten in all these past years is that the well-known Dunning-Kruger effect, you probably know, it's that...

cognitive bias that says that many not fully competent people think that they are above the average in the knowledge or the realm of some that happens very much in payments and particularly with civil servants and officials they fall in that very precise effect the Dunning-Kruger effect by which they think that they are more competent than they are actually and that they

They think that they are right and they impose that rightness on you without a proper debate. That, as a way of warning to Gijs, don't allow them to be there. Don't allow them to crowd out you from the discussion because they are right and you don't know enough about payments. That's not the truth.

Michael Salmony 31:01

Well Javier, we're going to have those lovely controversial episodes in the future. I really look forward to this. You're fantastic. Lovely to hear you. ⁓ Evidence based regulation, right, is what I'm hearing from you.

Ralf Ohlhausen 31:11

Well, but hang

on, hang on. I have to bring in my first agreement here because of course, mean, especially so where I can sympathize with that a lot is with when, when let's say authorities explained us how TPPs are supposed to work, how account information works, how payment initiation works and, then writing it into stone in a law that

is not working because they never really understood how TPPs are really working. that's one of the reasons why we need to have this less regulation. hang on, I'll stop again and I'll leave it to Gijs to say what he thinks about that or other things.

Gijs Boudewijn 31:56

Well, I was actually just Googling the Dunning-Kruger effect in payments. There is no example of it yet, but it does in finance, which is that inexperienced investors may overestimate their abilities to pick stocks, analyze companies or predict market trends, leading to poor investment choices and potential financial losses. then you can transpose that to payments as well. Well, of course, I have to learn to be more neutral than I used to be.

And so we sort of will be diverging, Javier, being neutral and now more outspoken. I am more outspoken and have to be a little bit more neutral. But I do see your point. And I have had in my long career in payments seen many examples on the one hand of indeed sometimes civil servants politely listening to people, to stakeholders, not only

from the supply side, also to picking and choosing arguments from stakeholders and holding them. but it's the consumers that want this. It's the retailers that want that. So you banks should do this because your customers want it, right? Because we've been talking to your customers and this is what your customers want. So we will regulate it so you can do what they want. We see it happening in a certain context, I believe, in the more... ⁓

I'm not sure that the digital currency space, we see examples of that. On the other hand, I do believe in a public-private partnership, but a real public-private partnership. I said it recently, also to the Commission, a public-private partnership is not a partnership where only the private parties foot the bill or fund the business case.

put your money where your mouth is and especially in these times of autonomy and sovereignty and we'll get to if it's a red herring or not but if we believe that guys put your money where your mouth is help us help the industry put some billions on the table for the private sector to build good solutions before you start spending it on your own whatever you see what i what i mean ⁓ on the on the other hand

I also know many civil servants who are very professional, who are ready to listen. But sometimes we, the conclusions of what the problem is and what the solution should be, and I agree with Javier on that, ⁓ it's the famous impact analysis ⁓ accompanying ⁓ initiative legislative proposals from Brussels. ⁓

proving that the legislative proposals right where there is sometimes, especially in the longer past, further down in the past, interchange fee regulation, it was not a real impact analysis. It was only pick and choose evidence that would support what they wanted to regulate. And if you then transpose that to the red herring, as Javier ⁓ called it, I do believe

that we do have a problem as Europe. We've been sitting back and relaxed and trusting on others capabilities way too long, neglecting our own competitiveness. That's why I fully support the Draghi report. It is a wake-up call, just as I have always said to the industry, that PSD2 was a giant wake-up call to the incumbent banks, that they had to start being better for their customers. That was the message. It was understood. We have a clear message. ⁓

If the solutions proposed to solve the problem are the clever ones, one could argue because I said that years ago, the Americans are not just going to go away because we say boo when I was still chair of the European payments, the EBF's payments committee. We sort of demonized them. We could also have said, guys, how can you help?

us to become, it sounds a bit paradoxical, but how can you guys, because we created the problem ourselves, we sold everything we had to these Americans, banks made a lot of money on that, European banks, and this is a little bit crying over spilled milk, we caused this for a large to large extent ourselves. And the question, it's an open question to me, yes, being more independent is good.

but is building it yourself the only way, the right way? Or could you also say, guys, we want to at least for resilience purpose, because we want to absolutely govern it fully, full control end to end, but there may be other solutions too, but we will regulate where you have to put the data, where you do the processing. So non-EU companies, because we are such an open and free market economy here that we generally pave the way for others to reap the benefits of what we...

create as internal market, including an organized framework and others more advanced, reap the benefits of that instead of doing it ourselves. And that is the funny paradox. So for me, it's a more nuanced debate. It's not, we hate these guys. We're going to build our own. Hmm, we don't have the money nor the stamina nor the knowledge or the innovation power to do that wholly by ourselves.

at least not in the first 10 or 20 years probably. So clever strategies could also be based on, and that's where I come back to Ralf, maybe cooperation is also an opportunity because I thought either Ralf or me would die, but we're still both alive and we are both happy and we can cooperate and have a good living for everybody. and... ⁓

It's all open, I'm not having to conclude, but looking back, was triggered by the red herring. You were very vehement about it. I didn't see you like that so ferocious on the red herring thing, but it is a fair point. Are we doing it in a clever way?

Michael Salmony 38:16

No. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much, Gijs, for your closing statement for today and also for this whole series. I think we're going to have some really fun, controversial discussions in the future around sovereignty, obviously. And it's going to be quite exciting because on the one hand,

Gijs Boudewijn 38:16

It's a question.

Michael Salmony 38:35

payments is getting increasingly complex. It's connected to AI and to sovereignty and to standards and tokenization. And so there's an argument one needs to focus on payments and drill down in that because it's such a complex ⁓ evolving landscape. But there's another argument which says payments is connected to identity and to invoicing and to corporate services and to B2B and to all sorts of others. So an argument for opening it up.

So it's going to be interesting to see how that goes and how Gijs will steer the EPC on that. So unless there's, I will miss the last minute interruptions from Gijs, so I'm going to give you your special opportunity to do that today if you want to do that. Otherwise, no, no. Okay. So I would then...

Gijs Boudewijn 39:18

Mm-hmm.

Ralf Ohlhausen 39:20

Well, let me then at least thank you Gijs

and honestly, it was a real pleasure having you here in our Trilogue and well, looking forward to working with you in your new role as well.

Michael Salmony 39:37

Absolutely.

Gijs Boudewijn 39:37

Same here, Ralf.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially the open conversation with Javier. Lots of luck. We've never really ⁓ had a specific script or long preparations. We just start the conversation and have a discussion. And that is the beauty of it. Just having a conversation. I think an open-minded conversation. So guys, good luck in the future and I will be watching you.

Michael Salmony 40:05

That's been a fun for all of us. So I hope all of you enjoyed this episode, which I think was surprisingly lively, which is supposed to be just a transition thing, but actually we got lot of fairly controversial and interesting views. Thank you all for watching. Thank you, Gijs, for your wonderful participation over all the 20 episodes or however many we did. Javier, really welcome. Ralf and I will really look forward to carrying this forward.

Javier 40:05

Okay.

Gijs Boudewijn 40:14

Ha

Michael Salmony 40:33

So thanks all for watching and see you next time.

Gijs Boudewijn 40:38

Bye bye to everybody.