and pace of progress that we make in reducing the unemployment rate and having inflation return to target. as things currently stand, we expect that progress to be steady, but to be only gradual. given this assessment, the reserve bank board does not see a strong case for a near - term adjustment of monetary policy. we will, of course, keep that judgement under review at future meetings. before finishing, i would like to mention a couple of developments on the payments side of the bank ’ s responsibilities. the first is the launch this week of the new payments platform. this is a major piece of national infrastructure, which will benefit households and businesses. its development is the result of a very complex collaborative industry effort over many years. this new payment system will allow australians to make faster, simpler and smarter payments on a 24 / 7 basis. one element of this is the use of payids instead of having to know bsbs and account numbers for many transactions. a major focus of the development effort has been security and to protect people from fraud. the process for initially registering payids, which is now underway, requires users to verify their identity. the new platform also requires users to confirm the recipient before a payment is completed. we would be happy to discuss further details of the new arrangements during the course of this hearing. 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches the second development on the payments side is the release yesterday of the design of the new $ 50 banknote. this new banknote will be issued into circulation from october this year. there are more $ 50 banknotes in circulation than any other note, so it is a big task. all up, there are 700 million $ 50s on issue – they are used heavily in transactions as well as being the main atm banknote. the new $ 50 banknote will feature the same world - leading security features as the $ 5 and $ 10 banknotes, including the clear top - to - bottom window. it will also have four bumps to help people with impaired vision recognise the note. as with the current $ 50 banknote, the new one honours two very significant australians : david unaipon and edith cowan. while these two australians came from very different backgrounds, they were both significant pioneers. david unaipon was australia ’ s first published aboriginal author, writing about, in his owns words, aboriginal ‘ customs, beliefs and imaginings ’. the micro - text on the banknote is an extract from his book, the legendary tales of

. that is, they rank countries from the richest down to the poorest. in the past, i have been critical of these rankings because there are so many statistical assumptions that are involved in their construction that the results are very approximate, and therefore cannot form the basis of policy interpretation or aspiration. to illustrate this, table 1 shows the rankings for the year 2000 as calculated by three separate organisations - the world bank, the oecd ( organisation for economic co - operation and development ) and penn world tables ( university of pennsylvania ). as you can see, there is a good deal of similarity between the three rankings, but australia ’ s position is variously recorded as seventh, tenth and twelfth out of 22 countries. table 1 gdp per capita rankings - oecd countries, 2000 penn world tables world bank oecd united states united states united states norway switzerland norway canada norway switzerland denmark iceland denmark switzerland belgium iceland ireland denmark ireland australia canada canada iceland japan netherlands japan austria austria netherlands netherlands australia belgium ireland belgium austria australia japan sweden germany germany finland finland finland united kingdom france italy germany sweden sweden france united kingdom united kingdom italy italy france new zealand spain new zealand spain new zealand spain portugal portugal portugal greece greece greece ppp weights. sources : penn world tables ; world bank ; oecd. notwithstanding these reservations, it should be pointed out that the period when australia was slipping down the rankings appears to have ended ( table 2 ). using the penn world tables, australia has moved up from tenth in 1990 to seventh in 2000, while the world bank numbers show it moving up from sixteenth in 1990 to ninth in 2002. i do not wish to make much of this, given my reservations about these rankings, but at least it should put a stop to stories about how we are falling behind. table 2 gdp per capita rankings - penn world tables switzerland united states united states united states united states switzerland switzerland norway new zealand canada canada canada denmark norway japan denmark australia iceland denmark switzerland sweden denmark iceland ireland canada sweden sweden australia united kingdom australia norway iceland netherlands netherlands finland japan norway france australia netherlands france belgium france belgium belgium austria belgium austria finland germany austria sweden iceland japan netherlands finland austria finland germany united kingdom italy italy italy germany ireland united kingdom united kingdom france spain new zealand new zealand italy japan greece ireland new zealand greece spain spain spain portugal ireland portugal portugal portugal greece greece table 2 ( cont ) gdp per capita rankings - world bank switzerland switzerland norway united states united states united states norway norway ireland iceland iceland denmark denmark denmark iceland canada canada canada austria