Money, Payment Systems and the European Union. The regulatory challenges of governance

When the term "governance" is associated with money, the mind goes directly to the traditional regulatory system, i.e. the nation State-Central Banking-Currency. However, over the time, there has been a steady erosion of the nation States' sovereignty, also in the area of monetary law. This process of erosion is still working within and externally to the nation State or, in other words, from upwards to downwards and vice versa. Moving from upwards to downwards, highly interconnected financial markets have urged the national competent authorities to improve the global level of coordination in terms of sharing regulatory standards, supervisory models and risk-monitoring procedures. In the downwards-upwards direction, the concept of sovereignty is critically revised from the perspective of new an alternative means of payment, thanks to the growth of e- and mobile- commerce as well as new complementary currency projects. The European Union is a feasible instituional context in which to investigate the development of the governance of money: no definition of money is laid down. This book examines the regulatory challenges of money as a means of payment, a reserve of value and a community bound, following an interdisciplinary approach. It is divided in three sections: the first is devoted to the analysis of money as means of payment, the second deals with money as a means of community identity and the third turns to central banking activity.