thanks also go to the various ministers of finance with whom i always maintained cordial personal ― although occasionally tense professional ― relations, my deputy governors, the head of governor ’ s office, and other key staff - members on whom i relied to deliver on my mandate. 36. the past five years have been tumultuous, but as i mentioned in my acceptance speech when i received the “ central banker of the year 2012, africa ” award, i have always maintained an unwavering focus on the statutory mandate of the bank. my aim has also been to rejuvenate the bank by bringing in vital improvements in line with international best practice. after 45 years, i believe the central bank has reached a level of maturity where it can confidently play a key role, not only in maintaining confidence in the economy, but also in accompanying the country ’ s progress to ever - higher levels of growth, development and welfare. bis central bankers ’ speeches

##igate further appreciation pressures on the exchange rate value of the rupee to avert the adverse potential impact of the worsening euro debt crisis on key sectors of the economy. i firmly believe that the real test of our management of exchange rate policy has emerged in the medium - term perspective over the five years for a short - run view can be very misleading, even if it makes good headlines in the media. 15. modernisation of the financial market infrastructure when i took over as governor in 2007, i discovered that the growing financial sector, in particular the offshore segment, and increasing cross - border transactions posed new and complex challenges to the existing payment system infrastructure. i realised that the financial market infrastructure needed a major overhaul to meet these demands. so the first decision that i took in this area was to replace the existing real - time gross settlement system – the mauritius automated clearing and settlement system ( macss ) – with another application that was built on a more resilient architecture and supported multi - currency transactions. the extended capability of the system has no doubt been a major contributing factor behind the appointment by comesa member - states of the bank of mauritius as the settlement bank for its regional payment and settlement system, whose operations we now host. we pursued our modernisation process with the implementation of the cheque truncation system, which provides for the bulk clearing of low - value electronic transactions. i set out, during my tenure, to extend the coverage of the mauritius credit information bureau ( mcib ) to all types of credit institutions operating in the economy. the mcib has over the years emerged as an essential risk management tool for banks in their lending activities. 16. over the past years, the card - based payment method has assumed growing importance in the economy and it is expected to make further inroads on cash and cheque - based settlement. the systemic importance of card transactions may pose a threat to the stability of the financial system if left unattended. in line with our mandate to ensure the stability and soundness of the financial system, i saw the need to revisit our erstwhile hands - off approach to this sector and move to regulate it properly. the bank will thus set up and operate a national payment switch ( nps ) by the end of the year. the nps is a national, multifaceted switching platform for various payment channels and it will settle the net positions of banks on the macss while reducing the cost of transactions and routing costs via the