capital markets continues to show healthy activity with new issuances of bonds and sukuk. total outstanding issuance rose by 7. 5 % in 2023 to more than rm2 trillion, reinforcing the trend of consistent growth from the previous year. the stock market has been doing well of late, up over 10 % for the year to date and breaching the rm2 trillion market capitalisation recently. public listings have been healthy and there is a pipeline of listings coming this year. we also see in the news a consistent stream of announcements on new investments, new contracts or projects secured, merger and acquisition activities and so on. all this bodes well for the economy and our prospects. however, when it comes to the ringgit, we need to do a bit more. we certainly expect our fundamentals to prevail and in the longer term, the ringgit will reflect these fundamentals. in the near term though, the ringgit is still facing a serious headwind from the strength of the us dollar overall. the high and tighter us interest rates will continue for some time. this has influenced behaviour among investors, corporates, exporters and importers as well as our public. for example, there is greater interest to invest in foreign currency assets. additionally, exporters could favour holding foreign currencies while importers front - load purchases and some corporates are even seen to accelerate repaying foreign currency debt. continuing in this manner sets the tone for a weakening ringgit which then further reinforces the trend. excessive depreciation is costly for businesses with greater import reliance. it also perpetuates negative sentiment towards our economy and markets. this is something we must break. what are we doing then to break this? firstly, we are deploying our primary tools to preserve stability and prevent excessive depreciation in the market. we have been intervening – selling foreign currencies and buying ringgit – and we have been doing so for some time. 2 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches secondly, we have engaged with the market to encourage flows into the foreign exchange market. we worked with the government linked investment companies ( glics ) and government linked companies ( glcs ) to repatriate and convert their foreign incomes. we have extended these engagements to corporates and exporters in bringing their income and proceeds as well as managing their investments abroad and foreign currency balances. a conservative ballpark estimate puts the potential annual income conversions alone

electronic payments, should take into account the need for an incentive structure that promotes the increased use of e - payments. in recent years, several notable developments in e - payments in malaysia have taken place. following its introduction in 2000, the inter - bank giro system, an electronic credit transfer system, had recorded on annual average increase in transactions of 160 % in terms of volume and nearly 200 % in terms of value between 2003 and 2004. the credit card is also becoming a popular means of payment card, with the total value and volume of increasing annually by 15 and 20 percent respectively. the growing acceptance of internet banking as a convenient delivery channel for accessing banking services has translated into a significant growth of internet banking subscribers, which today comprise two thirds of the total internet subscribers. the latest mode of electronic payments channel is the mobile banking services that provide convenience to consumers to access a range of payment services such as funds transfers, bill payments and credit card services through mobile phones. in addition, the establishment of an internet - based multi - bank payment system in malaysia, the financial process exchange in october 2004, would facilitate online payments for a variety of payments by providing convenience and an efficient channel for businesses and consumers to undertake their payment transactions through the internet. while these positive developments will support the attainment of the objective of migration to epayments, the commercial issues between the consumers and the service providers have often times inhibited growth in the volume of the e - payments. the business and pricing models have at times inadvertently promoted a less efficient system, such as in the case of the low price that customers pay for using cheques compared to the inter - bank giro payments, and the popularity of the credit card against debit card, which is a more efficient system that carries less risk. in addition, service providers have also had difficulties in agreeing on a common business platform, due to their own competitive positioning strategies. such differences have contributed to containing the increased acceptance of epayments, which is further reinforced by the consumers'need to see a wide spread acceptance by merchants before deciding to use the e - payment mode, while the merchant needs to see a critical mass of consumers before putting in place the required infrastructure. in this regard, a comprehensive review of the industry - wide related issues involving payment instruments and systems needs to be undertaken to make malaysia more competitive, with a view to promoting the more efficient payment systems and addressing the commercial hurdles. in order to further improve the growth and promote the e - payments, the