conducted seminars with central bankers from 13 african countries. only in may this year, together with the bank of morocco, we organised a conference on “ good governance ” in rabat. participants came from ten different central banks in the frenchspeaking part of africa. and together with the federal financial supervision authority of germany, we are planning a seminar on “ capital market development ” in rwanda. domestic debt markets are the primary way to raise private funds for investment. and they are even more helpful when they raise capital in local currency because no exchange rate variations put the investment decisions at risk. the existence of such a local currency bond market also underscores the credibility of the domestic currency. so far, relatively developed local currency bond markets in africa exist in south africa, egypt and nigeria. together, they account for nearly 90 % of total outstanding local currency bonds in africa. 3 i ’ m convinced that other african countries could benefit from the experience of these three countries. in south africa, for example, the domestic bond market developed as far back as the 1980s, when the country had to look inwards to finance fiscal deficits. 4 nowadays, the south african market is well integrated into international financial markets, and has successfully funded infrastructure to upgrade ports, railways and public utilities such as the power grid. and local currency debt markets also have another advantage. my colleague, governor lesetja kganyago, has once pointed out “ in south africa, the existence of a large and liquid domestic government bond market [ … ] has limited the rise in foreign - currency denominated debt, even as our country has experienced large current account deficits. " today, digital technologies can help develop domestic debt markets. and digital technologies can be key drivers of financial inclusion in less developed countries. in kenya, for example, the share of people with a financial account rose from 42 % in 2011 to 75 % in 2014. over the same period, the respective global figure rose from 51 % to 61 %. in tandem with the mounting ubiquity of cell phones, mobile money accounts have gained popularity, particularly in sub - saharan africa. in some countries, there are even more adults with a mobile money account than a conventional bank account. 5 so when it comes to digitisation in finance, there may be something the g20 can learn from africa, too. in any case, “ compact with africa ” signals that african countries are not alone. a compact has at least two signatories. the g

andreas dombret : the glass is half full – seven years of regulatory reform in the financial sector keynote address by dr andreas dombret, member of the executive board of the deutsche bundesbank, at the euromoney conference “ the public sector financing forum ”, frankfurt am main, 30 september 2015. * 1. * * introduction ladies and gentlemen thank you for inviting me to speak at today ’ s public sector financing forum. it is a great pleasure to be here. the focal point you have chosen for this forum – the low - interest - rate environment – is indeed highly topical, and has been keeping us all very busy lately. a case in point is the survey that the bundesbank and bafin recently conducted among german banks on the challenges posed by low interest rates – more on that later. as you all know, the financial sector still faces a truly challenging environment. while the worst aspects of the crisis and its consequences have been weathered successfully, circumstances remain difficult. in my speech today, i will be discussing these circumstances and also shedding some light on what we have to do to complete the post - crisis regulatory reforms. i will argue that we have come a long way but that we are not done yet. nevertheless, since we have accomplished the majority of reforms, my message is this : the glass is half full, not half empty. 2. a truly challenging environment before i talk about regulation, let me sketch the truly challenging environment that now exists, and let me emphasise four factors. first, after the crisis, banks faced substantial deleveraging pressure. adjusting risk taking and funding strategies was necessary in order to survive and meet new regulatory demands. as the process of phasing in the regulatory reforms will continue until 2019, many institutions still need to deleverage further. second, all financial institutions ‒ but banks in particular ‒ need to adapt to new technological demands for renewal. digitalisation offers substantial challenges and opportunities at the same time. in any event, it has the potential to reshape the banking sector. the third factor is the high degree of investment uncertainty. unfortunately, in the current economic setting, there remains a high degree of uncertainty about the economic trajectory. what regulators can do, however, is pave the way for a sustainable recovery in the financial sector within a strong framework of rules – and combine this with reasonable phasing - in horizons. the fourth factor in the difficult environment is the low interest rate setting in which you all have