Prompt Pay will be an impetus in changing consumers’ behaviours to use electronic payment for everyday goods and services. Transactional banking 2  could be easily completed online or via mobile phone rather than going to bank branches. This move towards less reliance on cash will reduce the cost of cash handling thereby increasing efficiency of the banking industry and the Thai economy as a whole. On the downside, technology comes with associated risks. In recent years, cyber threats have increased dramatically in frequency, sophistication and their widespread effects. This year, at least four financial institutions in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Ecuador, and the Philippines became victims of cyber heist involving the SWIFT system while ATMs in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and recently in many European countries have been hacked. IT security and cyber security need to be addressed for secure transactions and to ensure trust among customers. The Bank of Thailand and the Thai Bankers Association (TBA) have collaborated to set up an Information Sharing Group (ISG) or financial-sector CERT. The group enables comprehensive information sharing and connects to other involved parties such as cyber security specialists, vendors, and legal enforcement agencies, to develop defensive, preventive and responsive plans. This is a first step for Thailand. Given the borderless cyber world, collaboration on cyber security among ASEAN countries needs to be enhanced. ASEAN banks have to step up efforts and join hands in setting up processes and tools for sharing cybersecurity incidents, exchange of information and knowledge, conducting cyber attack exercises, and developing cyber security experts.

Domestic assets may be purchased by foreign investors generating net portfolio inflows, which would raise domestic money growth. It is also true, however, that money and credit growth could trigger international portfolio flows. Specifically, two mechanisms can be identified through which liquidity affects international portfolio flows. First, strong money and credit growth in one country may induce capital outflows to foreign asset markets, thereby exerting upward pressure on prices for financial and real assets abroad. Second: At the same time, ample liquidity conditions in the domestic economy may fuel strong economic growth and be accompanied by higher asset prices, thereby inducing foreign capital inflows. The current magnitude of the stock of global liquidity and global savings is such that the asset prices and money growth of large economic areas, including the euro area, can be affected by them. In the same vein, large net capital inflows, as well as their sudden reversals, may also have important real consequences for large economies as they can systematically influence domestic monetary developments with potential implications for monetary policy. Evidence from the euro area shows that international portfolio flows have played an increasingly important role as a driving force for monetary dynamics. As you are aware, the ECB’s monetary policy strategy attributes a prominent role to the analysis of monetary aggregates and their counterparts in the assessment of risks to price stability over the medium to longer term.