in this respect a small retail store in a remote part of the country could serve as an agent to help solve everyday problems of a farmer, who is generally required to travel long distances and incurs high costs for utilizing the necessary financial services. as a forward - looking regulator of the banking industry, the state bank has played an effective role in providing an enabling regulatory environment for the banks to leverage their full potential of technology, mobile operators ’ penetration, and other available delivery channels to provide financial services to all segments of the population. until recently, banks were largely focusing on conventional banking, but with the introduction of branchless banking regulations in 2008, banks are now getting fast into action by exploiting information and communication technologies ( ict ) to offer more innovative products and services. these regulations have now enabled our banks to diversify their geographic footprint in areas where conventional branch banking was either inadequate or totally absent. today, we have two fully functional branchless banking deployments with over 22, 000 access points with a geographic dispersion in over 600 cities across the country. these deployments are serving more than 1 million accountholders and millions of over - thecounter customers. so far around 80 million branchless banking transactions of rs. 300 billion have been executed in pakistan. in addition to the above, a number of banks are already in the pilot phase with others approaching sbp to initiate branchless banking business. it also gives me immense pleasure to share that one of the largest mobile operators in the country and the largest private sector banks is already flexing its muscles to enter into the branchless banking arena. with the influx of new entrants, i am expecting a surge in the number of access points to over 50, 000 very soon. our achievements in the branchless banking services have put pakistan at the global centre stage of financial inclusion and innovation. cgap, in its recent study has also recognized pakistan as one of the fastest developing markets for branchless banking. according to the recent data from sbp ’ s branchless banking newsletter, a large segment of the previously unbanked population has started entering into a new arena of branchless banking ( bb ). total volume ( number ) of transactions has jumped to 20. 6 million during the oct - dec 2011 quarter. thus, the average daily transactions have increased to 228, 855. value of transactions during the last quarter reached rs 79, 410 million. total number of branchless banking accounts have increased to 929, 184.

international dimension of islamic finance which is also influencing the global patterns of financial and trade flows. islamic finance today has contributed to increasing the financial and economic ties between asia and the middle east. the emergence of new financial centres in asia and the middle east has seen stronger investment and financial flows between the two regions. with the greater internationalisation of this form of financial intermediation, it has also opened up the prospects for the developed economies to forge stronger financial linkages with these dynamic growth regions of asia and the middle east. the inherent features of islamic finance require that financial transactions are supported by an underlying economic activity, thus ensuring that there is a close link between financial and productive flows. islamic finance is also based on the principle of profit - sharing and therefore risk sharing. islamic financial transactions clearly define the arrangements at the outset, and provides the incentive for the appropriate due diligence to be undertaken by the islamic financial institutions to ensure that the profits are commensurate with the risks being assumed. aspects of governance and risk management are therefore strongly emphasised in the arrangements. this arrangement also demands for higher standards of disclosure and transparency which in turn, acts to strengthen market discipline. regional monetary and financial cooperation the asian financial crisis has also prompted greater regional monetary and financial cooperation. earlier regional cooperation had focused mainly on trade, investment and development. this decade has seen the cooperation shift to efforts to address financial stability issues, namely surveillance, crisis management, liquidity support arrangements, financial supervision and financial market development. other areas include the payments and settlement system and capacity building in the financial sector. the route that asia is taking to forge greater financial integration will therefore be different from that of europe. unlike in the european union, asia does not have centralised institutions to coordinate financial integration but rather has leveraged on the existing intraregional groupings and networks to forge greater cooperation and collaboration in areas of common interest. this is mainly through the asean + 3 and emeap which comprise the east asia pacific central banks. secondly, a common currency is not on asia ’ s medium term agenda. to minimise exchange rate risks and to facilitate intra - regional trade and investment, a number of countries have initiated bilateral arrangements to use domestic currencies for trade settlement. there is also now a pooling of reserves so as to have in place liquidity support facilities for the region. conclusion let me conclude my remarks. asia is very much part of the changes that are taking place in the global economy and the international financial