On the other hand, operators of financial market infrastructures are expanding into the core business of banks. For example, a number of central securities depositories and their participants are providing loans and liquidity facilities. Although this is done primarily to facilitate the settlement of securities transactions, the line of demarcation from traditional financial intermediation is becoming increasingly blurred. Also, by granting remote access or by establishing more efficient connections between the individual central securities depositories, they are offering serious competition to the traditional custodians. Technological progress has been the driving force behind this blurring of roles between financial market infrastructures and banks. Technology has enabled large banks to break into the operational field of infrastructure operators without much additional expenditure. Indeed, they have been virtually obliged to do so, in order to utilise their IT platforms to full capacity and to run them efficiently. On the demand side, the smaller financial institutions also benefit. As they outsource their back office functions to larger banks or specialised institutions, they can better focus on their core business. The infrastructure operators, in turn, are finding themselves in a situation where hardly anyone is willing to pay for traditional transaction services that have taken on a commodity character. Consequently, they are diversifying and providing services that generate a higher added value. Those infrastructure operators that are organised as profit-oriented public companies, in particular, are likely to further intensify competition with the banks in the future. This development is confronting the regulators with new challenges.

It is of paramount importance that the school put in place measures to avert rampant vandalism. Ladies and Gentlemen, let me also mention here that the challenges I have just outlined are not only common to Mumbwa High School, but are experienced in many Government schools. We also realize that the Government has limited resources and cannot attend to the problems of every school in the country at one time. It is for this reason that the Bank of Zambia has continued to donate used computers to several schools around the country. In 2009, the Bank donated a total of 60 computers to various schools including Mumbwa High School, David Kaunda Technical High School, Information and Communications Technology Ladders, and St Francis of Assisi in Lusaka. We are hoping that through these donations the beneficiary schools will sustain and improve the academic performance while bridging the digital divide. Further, a number of schools including our own Mumbwa High School do not have internet access to enable teachers carry out their research activities. In order to improve performance in class, we need to ensure that we enhance the capacity of our teachers. We must recognise that computers alone are not magic and neither should they replace chalk and blackboards, but they should and can be used as a tool to aid learning. Providing more computers at schools will do little without providing the tools that enhance teaching and research like internet.