With an average volume of 2.7 billion euros ($3 billion) a minute over the course of each business day, the euro area's TARGET2 settlement system is one of the world's most important bits of financial plumbing.
Like most bits of plumbing it is generally out of sight and — except for extreme monetary fetishists — out of mind. This does not mean, however, that people should dismiss TARGET2 as nothing more than a piece of infrastructure, as it throws up insights into stresses within the euro system.