ratio ( car ) stood at 16. 7 percent as of end - 2017. this is higher than the bsp standard and the global norm. this is evidence of the industry ’ s commitment to build adequate buffers for risk - taking. net income of p17. 9 billion in 2017 yielded 12. 7 percent return to shareholders. this came about from the steady growth in net interest income ( nii ) and more cost - efficient operations. these performance results should encourage the industry to stay on its healthy course. fostering stronger partnership for sustainable growth at this juncture, i would like to express gratitude to ctb for its exemplary dedication and commitment in supporting bsp ’ s mandate and advocacies. notable is ctb ’ s pivotal role in the industry ’ s adoption of the ulama and the lendr platform. for this, ctb was chosen as the outstanding strategic industry partner in the 2017 awards for bsp stakeholders. we reaffirm our continued partnership with ctb in the pursuit of prudential reforms, particularly risk and corporate governance standards. we recently issued the minimum prudential liquidity requirements for stand - alone tbs and other small banks. the minimum liquidity ratio ( mlr ) will promote resilience to liquidity shocks. to differentiate risks among bank borrowers, we are currently studying adoption of the risk - based pricing framework for bank loans. this will encourage good borrowers to avail of more loans because of the lower interest on account of their good credit standing. moreover, the proposal aims to reduce potential systemic risk from competitive pressures that may result in lower interest rates even for customers with poor credit quality. 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches parallel to this, the bsp fervently hopes to on - board all filipinos into the financial system. to make banking services more accessible, we issued the framework for basic deposit accounts. we trust that thrift banks will be at the forefront of opening basic deposit accounts. we trust that thrift banks will be at the forefront of opening basic deposit accounts. part of our strategy is the deepening of financial education and consumer protection initiatives, as well as leveraging on available digital technology to have greater scale in banking. charting the course towards digitalization a fintq inclusive digital finance report for 2017 – 2018 highlighted the huge opportunities for financial service providers to innovate financial products and services that offer the greatest potential in transforming the country ’ s financial landscape. thrift banks can take advantage of

is as close as it can be to serving the country. of course, that [ also ] applies to central bank governors because our job is to do things for the country. in your case, you are doing business [ and ] seeking profits, but if you do it well and do it under the rules, you are actually serving the country. that is not a new thing. there are times when self - interest and the country's interest can coincide, and i cannot think of a better example of that than of a banker who follows the rules. now, a colleague of mine... found that a collapse of a stock market bubble hurts the economy a lot less over the medium run than a collapse of a real estate bubble. the collapse of a real estate bubble is linked to a long period of abnormally low growth rates for three, four, even five years, while the collapse of the stock market bubble had [ little 1 / 6 bis - central bankers'speeches to ] no effects on the economy. of course, she did not explain why that is the case, [ but ] i have a simple explanation : banks do not lend to stock market speculators. they lend a lot to real estate. so real estate... [ when it slows ], it hurts the banking industry, which in turn, results in banks being too risk - averse and, therefore, a prolonged period of slow growth. indeed, this concept is not in the textbooks : the concept of balance sheet recession. when balance sheets get destroyed [ by a crisis ], the economy grows slower. because as anyone who has taken a course in accounting knows, a lot of lending happens to be based on balance sheets, and there is nothing like a weak balance sheet to make people risk - averse. so, if it is the balance sheet of the banks that are weak, the impact on the economy is prolonged. during that period of balance sheet fixing, we experience abnormally low periods of growth. fortunately, we learned that from the asian financial crisis. fortunately, our regulations, which we got [ and enhanced ] from previous dialogues with you, acknowledged that that was very important. [ deputy governor ] chuchi [ fonacier ] will testify to that. we had lots of debates about how quickly we will move towards basel ii. maybe we are moving too fast? and we decided, no, there is no such thing as moving too fast. i think it's now paying divide