Mohd Razif bin Abd Kadir: Shared services and outsourcing in the Malaysian financial sector Address by Mr Mohd Razif bin Abd Kadir, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the Shared Services and Outsourcing in the Financial Sector – A Joint Forum by Bank Negara Malaysia and the Multimedia Development Corporation, Kuala Lumpur, 13 November 2007. *  *  *  Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the inaugural forum on shared services and outsourcing (SSO) in the financial sector. This forum is jointly organised by Bank Negara Malaysia and the Multimedia Development Corporation in a cooperative initiative to enhance the significance of SSO in the Malaysian financial sector. The organisation of this event, which focuses specially on the financial services industry and its players, is a timely bringing together of minds to discuss the issues and concerns faced by financial institutions in SSO. The growing significance of the global SSO market suggests to the financial industry players that the outsourcing of operations which would otherwise be performed in-house is certainly an idea worth exploring. According to a recent study by Frost & Sullivan, the global SSO market was estimated to be worth $ billion in 2006 and is forecasted to reach a market size of $ billion by end-2009. Further, the banking, financial services and insurance sectors had the largest SSO spending in 2006 at an estimate of $ billion or almost a third of total SSO spending.

Bank of France reports industrial output continued to grow in most sectors in France in January 1997 BANK OF FRANCE, MONTHLY BUSINESS SURVEY, 17/2/97. In January, according to the business leaders surveyed by the Banque de France, industrial output continued to grow in most sectors. Activity was especially buoyant in the intermediate goods and consumer goods sectors. The food processing sector was alone in recording a contraction in activity. The capacity utilization rate improved. Overall demand strengthened further. French products were very competitive on foreign markets and this led to an increase in export orders. Export sales increased in the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany, while demand remained firm in the United States and Asia. On the domestic market, inter-industry demand was strong, even though the orders received came with very short delivery times in most cases. Order books are now near to normal levels. They are still considered to be low in the food-processing and automobile industries, but are deemed to be satisfactory in the capital goods and consumer goods sectors. Inventories of finished products are gradually returning to normal overall, but they still exceed the desired levels in the consumer goods, food-processing and intermediate goods sectors. The outlook for the coming months is distinctly brighter. Activity should increase in all sectors, with marked improvements in the intermediate goods and food-processing sectors. Commodity prices were stable overall, while finished product prices declined slightly. This fall stemmed mainly from substantial price cuts in the automobile industry, while prices generally held up in the other sectors.