commercial banks in 2004. the licensing ban had been put in place following several bank failures in the late 1990s. you may recall that these bank failures resulted in the enactment of the financial institutions act, ( fia ) 2004 with more stringent regulatory standards that required new entrants to undergo rigorous due diligence and meet higher minimum capital requirements. kcb uganda has expanded to a bank with a branch network of sixteen branches across the country and has registered significant growth in its balance sheet and shareholder capital over the years. ladies and gentlemen, these are no mean achievements given the increasing competition in the banking sector. financial services ’ providers need to innovate continuously to remain competitive. in this regard, the bank has positioned itself as one of the leading providers of digital banking solutions in the market. it recently upgraded its core banking system to support the bank ’ s digitalization. mission : to foster price stability and a sound financial system macroeconomic stability vision : to be a centre of excellence in upholding the next decade promises to be even more exciting and challenging for banks in uganda. it will be characterized by accelerated dynamism in form of adoption of new technologies and service models that offer advantages but also pose new risks. it is a period in which fintech can be applied to spur efficiency gains in the financial sector, offer more specialized, better and more targeted products and services, and deepen financial inclusion. it is still too early to gauge the full impact of the current technological progress on the banking sector. however, it is not untenable to say that there is potential for many of the services and products currently on offer by banks and other financial market players to be rendered obsolete by new tech - savvy entrants or more competitive processes. with the increased use of technology in our daily lives, banks will be required to adopt more efficient mechanisms of leveraging the vast quantities of consumer and firm data. the advent of new fintech has implications for financial stability and the attendant regulation and supervision frameworks. first, a number of these financial services and products stretch beyond the realm of the existing supervisory and regulatory framework. second ; the near universal use of technological solutions could entail increased vulnerability to cyberattacks and inadequacies with respect to compliance with anti - money laundering and anti - terrorism financing regulations. to respond to these new risks and vulnerabilities, our regulatory framework will also have to change fundamentally from the present focus on intermediaries or “ entity - based ”

i think, necessary for improving our understanding of how to preserve financial stability in the current context. the second issue is the potential spillover effects of monetary normalisation on emerging markets. the ‘ taper tantrum ’ of 2013 exposed the vulnerability of emerging markets to tightening global financial conditions. this time, most analysts expect the effects to be more benign, given the increased resilience of some key emerging economies and the favourable ( for them ) commodity prices, but we do not really know to what extent this might remain a cause of financial vulnerability. there are very good papers in this workshop on global fund flows and emerging markets, on the currency structure of corporate debt, on exchange rates, and on the effects of foreign monetary policy on inflation in emerging countries. it might be interesting to see these issues through the lens of monetary policy normalisation as well. the final issue i would like to mention is the transmission of monetary policy through the lending channel. a tightening of credit standards by banks might amplify the impulse from monetary policy normalisation. one interesting way to look at this issue is to consider the heterogeneity of banks in terms of ( say ) market power, screening processes, balance ‑ sheet strength, and possibly other factors. a further aspect that has become increasingly relevant is the role of macroprudential policy. conceptually, macro ‑ pru tools have strong complementarities with monetary policy, but we still know too little of the way they work in practice, given the relative novelty of their systematic use. there are excellent papers in the programme, both theoretical and empirical, on the transmission of monetary policy in an environment with heterogeneous banks and on the link between monetary and macroprudential policies. what lessons can we learn about the effects of monetary policy normalisation on the lending channel, and on the interactions between the monetary stance and what we might call the ‘ prudential stance ’? these are just a few of the many interesting topics that the workshop will address. others include the impact of multinationals on inflation co ‑ movements around the world, the role of a safe asset for international financial stability, and the functioning of central banks ’ swap lines at the beginning of the pandemic. it is a rich menu ; we shall learn a lot. i would like to thank the organisers for their efforts ; the presenters and discussants, and the keynote speaker, for their contributions ; all of you for being here to take part in this debate.