banks ’ commercial interests. abif will complement the broader economic integration of asean. • as asean economies develop further, their corporates will expand their operations into the region. • the banks who have been servicing these corporates in their home markets are well placed to follow their customers and support them as they regionalise. bis central bankers ’ speeches • abif will provide them an enhanced vehicle to do so. more importantly, abif will be a vehicle to help grow a group of strong pan - asean regional banks with the scale and the capability to compete alongside the global banks. as asean becomes an economic powerhouse, so must our asean banks. looking ahead, a key priority for banking integration will be to help banking groups with operations in several asean countries to share and transmit information across borders. • for banks with pan - asean operations, the segregation of data and systems in multiple countries due to data on - shoring requirements may hinder effective group risk management and raise data security concerns. • we should harness technology to support the pooling of data in regional and global data centres. • data aggregation will help enhance consolidated risk management and ensure better protection of customer data. insurance integration in insurance, asean member states have agreed on an asean insurance integration framework. • asean members have agreed in - principle to liberalise the cross - border supply of marine, aviation and goods in international transit ( mat ) insurance in the seventh package of financial sector commitments of the afas. • when this agreement is signed and ratified in 2016, insurance companies will be able to offer mat insurance across asean ’ s borders. • this move will help to lower the cost of insuring cross - border business risks and help to spur intra - asean trade. the next key steps will be to liberalise the catastrophe insurance and reinsurance markets. • asean ’ s insurance penetration rate is barely half the global average, even as the incidence and severity of natural catastrophes in asean continue to increase. • this large and widening gap in insurance coverage leaves asean countries vulnerable to economic loss and production disruptions from natural catastrophes. • as risk exposures grow in scale, size and complexity, they will exceed the capacity of individual states to underwrite the risks confronting their communities and economies. liberalising asean ’ s insurance markets will reduce the cost of insurance protection to governments, to businesses as well as to consumers. • the insurance business is premised on the law of large numbers and risk pooling – the wider the distribution of risks, the more cost

up measures and achieving remarkable results. first, we have thoroughly removed foreign ownership caps in the banking, securities, futures, fund management and life insurance sectors. foreign - funded financial institutions have been actively expanding their networks in china. since 2018, china ’ s market has witnessed the joining of eight foreign - holding securities companies, two foreign - holding fund management 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches firms, 20 private securities investment fund managers, as well as international rating agencies including standard & poor ’ s and fitch ratings. second, we have made continued efforts to expand business scopes of foreign financial institutions. to name but a few, we lifted restrictions on business scopes of foreign securities companies to ensure they enjoy the same treatment as domestic institutions. we permitted foreign - funded banks to become the lead underwriters for debt investment instruments after market - based evaluation. we also permitted foreign bank branches and subsidiaries to get qualified for fund custody. third, we have constantly improved the two - way opening - up of the capital market. in the first nine months of this year, china ’ s interbank bond market witnessed a rmb719. 1 billion increase of bonds held by foreign investors. recently, ftse russell announced that it will incorporate china ’ s government bond into its world government bond index. it should be noted that the opening - up of the financial sector is mutually beneficial. the competitive nature of the financial sector determines that opening - up and competition promotes china ’ s financial sector development and efficiency. meanwhile, foreign investors joining the chinese market can more easily share the benefits of economic development and the reform and opening up of china. hence, a win - win situation. 3. continued efforts to promote opening - up of the financial sector and create a financial business environment that is market - oriented, law - based and international first, we will fully roll out the pre - establishment national treatment and negative list regime, which will transform the philosophies and modes of opening - up. despite the rapid opening - up of china ’ s financial sector, we have noticed in our communications with foreign financial institutions and central banks that foreign - funded institutions are still subject to many permit applications and complex formalities in practice even though restrictions on market access and business activities have been lifted. they still appeal for a more open financial sector. this indicates that the financial sector still has a lot to do in shifting to the negative list management. there is no contradiction between the negative list management and the licensed - operation requirements of