These include specific initiatives to strengthen the regulatory framework governing market practices by financial service providers as well as enhanced minimum disclosure requirements and standards for credit card issuers, and on fees and charges for financial products. At the same time, ongoing efforts to raise the level of professionalism have also been intensified. BIS Review 4/2005  1  In 2004, the Bank introduced measures relating to sales practices in the insurance industry. Life insurance agents are also required to adopt best advice practices in the sale of life insurance products. To facilitate comparisons by consumers through enhanced disclosures, the Bank introduced mandatory disclosures of commissions, fees and charges for insurance products with savings and investment features that are sold through banking institutions. To ensure equitable treatment of policyholders, the Bank further strengthened the regulations on claims settlement practices and enhanced the controls over bonus reductions by life insurers to ensure reasonable returns to participating policyholders. More recently, the industry, together with the Ministry of Transport, implemented the e-cover notes system, which will effectively eliminate forged motor insurance cover notes. This represents an important development towards protecting the interests of both vehicle owners as well as road accident victims. The Bank also expects to license financial advisers in 2005. Following the enactment of the relevant legislation, financial advisers will be licensed and regulated by Bank Negara Malaysia to provide professional advisory services on insurance to consumers in relation to their financial planning needs.

The HKMA and BOT are fully committed to the successful implementation of this PvP link. Over the past year, exceptional effort has been made by BOT to engage Thai banks to encourage participation and adequate preparation for its implementation. On our side, apart from rendering support on the technical front, we have been in close dialogue with the participating banks of the USD RTGS system, especially those active in correspondent banking activities, to facilitate Thai banks to identify suitable correspondent banking service providers in Hong Kong. These efforts are bearing fruit. About half of the banks in Thailand, including most of those active in the FX market, participated in the pre-launch tests together with their USD correspondent banks in Hong Kong. On the back of the keen interest observed, I am confident that we will see sizeable flow of transactions through this link. 8. Expanding the footprint of the local financial market infrastructure is a strategy actively pursued by the HKMA to develop Hong Kong into a regional payment and settlement hub. This PvP link with Thailand is the third of its kind in the region, preceded by the launch of the links with Malaysia and Indonesia, in 2006 and 2010 respectively. According to the latest triennial survey on global FX market activity of the Bank for International Settlements, the average daily turnover in FX transactions in Asia increased by 27.5% from $ billion equivalent in April 2010 to $ billion equivalent in April 2013.