questions were included on the impact of the pandemic, the use of different policy measures and the strategies that businesses intend to adopt in the near term. this new survey is a valuable source of information on how business activity evolves by sector and on other corporate characteristics that will help outline short - term economic developments, but also identify more long - term patterns. as an example, initial results show that the impact of the covid - 19 shock was larger for small, young and less productive firms located in urban areas. moreover, these firms resorted relatively more to public - guaranteed loans, tax deferrals and ertes ( furlough schemes ). by the same token, let me stress the relevance of the investment survey conducted annually by the european investment bank since 2016, whose most recent results for spain have been presented at this conference. this survey contributes to improving our knowledge of the dynamics of firms ’ investment and investment finance. in particular, this source of information has proved very useful in identifying the main obstacles to investment. the high coverage of european firms in different countries allows for comparison of investment and investment finance developments across countries. in the context of the pandemic, the results of this survey are even more relevant since they allow us to better understand the implications of the covid - 19 shock for firms ’ investment across europe. to conclude, let me thank the european investment bank for partnering us in the organisation of this conference and, more in general, for their very good collaboration with us. i would also like to thank speakers and participants at the conference for such fruitful discussions. i ’ m convinced these debates are very useful for enriching our understanding of economic problems and for guiding policy makers as to the best possible design of economic policies to tackle them. thank you. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches

banking account to all those desirous of opening a bank account. several other aspects such as simplified kyc, ots for loans upto rs 25000, offering a gcc / simplified overdrafts etc were also covered. a decentralized approach was advocated through targeting 100 % financial inclusion district by district involving the dcc and bank and government officials to facilitate enrolment and identification. another very important policy measure in january 2006 was to allow banks to adopt the agency model or what is known as the business facilitator / business correspondent model for achieving greater outreach through intermediaries / agents. the results have been extremely impressive. in just two years the number of no frills accounts opened by banks has increased from around half a million accounts in march 2006 to 15 million in 2008. going by the data from service providers offering smart card solutions, it may be assumed that smart card accounts probably account for 2 to 3 million of these no frills accounts. evaluation by external agencies appointed by rbi has shown that while the first stage of opening no frills accounts has been quite impressive, due to inadequate f follow up, cost of transaction and access constraints, in many cases the accounts have not been operated upon at all after having been opened. in order to improve access and use of these accounts, banks will have to offer the services much closer to the customer either through mobile branches, satellite offices, extension counters or using intermediaries like shgs / mfis or through business correspondents using it to increase scale, access and reduce cost. also as is obvious from the results of these recent studies and surveys, the credit product that has to be offered, if the low income borrowers have to be brought into the formal system, has to be simple covering all the needs of small borrowers. i have absolutely no doubt that the simple overdraft or gcc based on cash flow / track record is the way forward to meet the challenges of providing access to the large numbers currently excluded. shgs and mfis role in fi the need for informality in credit delivery and easy access is demonstrated by the fact that shgs and mfis constitute the fastest growing segment in recent years in reaching out to small borrowers. these institutions are able to effectively address the small ticket and last mile issues. in the four years between 2003 and 2007, small borrower bank accounts ( credit ) i. e. upto rs 25000 increased marginally from 36