control outsourced activities. such an environment, if not properly managed, can lead to greater technological and security risk, as well as to malicious activities. for central banks, one of our key mandates is to ensure financial system stability. a key part of this is to make certain that banks and financial markets perform their functions efficiently, and that their business poses no systemic threat to the financial sector and the economy. hence, for a long time now, the main focus of bank regulation and supervision have been to ensure that banks manage their exposure to risk effectively. these include exposure to credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, and operational risk. much progress has been made in honing the approach for a more accurate assessment and a more effective management of risk, culminating in the basle ii, which is a global standard for bank ’ s risk management. but, in spite of what has been achieved, mishaps can and do happen. from time to time, we still read about banks suffering large losses that originate from the under - management of these risks. more often than not, the losses are linked to a breach of internal controls or systems that have been put in place to rein in excessive risk - taking in the first place. ladies and gentlemen. on the security risk aspect, the growth of electronic banking and real - time funds transfer have made the challenge of risk management even greater, as the nature of security risk to banks has shifted considerably. clearly, the main concern now is not so much about ensuring property security or preventing theft of physical assets, but about ensuring information security and preventing identity theft. the concern is not so much about control over access to restricted areas and cash vault, but about ensuring proper authorized access to the it systems and the electronic funds transfer network. and the issue is not so much about keeping bank premises open after a major disaster, but about ensuring that all key banking operations and network continue to function uninterrupted under a proper business continuity plan. these are aspects of modern security risks to banks. they are part of the broader operational risks, which have received greater attention as the business of banking moves further and further away from face - to - face transactions. in thailand, to address this challenge, we as bank supervisors, have over the past years provided best - practice guidance to the local banking industry in a number of important areas, including loss data collection, business continuity management and plan, it security, outsourcing, and it disaster recovery. in addition

sethaput suthiwartnarueput : laying the foundations for a sustainable recovery keynote address by dr sethaput suthiwartnarueput, governor of the bank of thailand, at the stock exchange of thailand : thailand focus 2023 " the new horizon ", bangkok, 23 august 2023. * * * distinguished guests, first, let me thank the stock exchange of thailand for inviting me to give a talk at the thailand focus this year. today, i will share with you my thoughts about the economic outlook, along with some observations about the bank of thailand ( bot )'s policy responses, focusing on monetary policy and financial policies in relation to household debt. part 1 : economic outlook before i go on in terms of economic outlook, it will be useful to do a look back and think about where things were a year ago, when i last spoke in august last year. things were quite different then. recovery in thailand was slow and lagged the region, partly due to our economy's heavy reliance on tourism. we closed out last year with about 11 million tourists, down from the 40 million prior to covid, and a fairly slow recovery in terms of the overall economic picture. consumption was recovering steadily from a low base. at the end of 2022, gdp growth came out at 2. 6 %. what was probably top of mind for us then was inflation, which was rising very rapidly as it was all around the world. headline cpi peaked in august 2022 at 7. 9 %, and eventually the outturn for the entire year turned in at 6. 1 %. core inflation peaked in december 2022 at about 3. 2 %. so that was the picture last year. fast forward to today, where are we now? things are on a much firmer ground. recovery is intact. gdp is finally back to pre - covid level in the first quarter of this year. consumption has been growing steadily, at above 6 % last year and above 5 % in first quarter of this year. tourism, which is a key determinant of the overall stage of economic recovery, has been recovering very steadily. year - todate, as of july, we had about 15 million tourists. we still maintain our year - end forecast for tourists of about 29 million, so we are getting closer to the pre - covid level. but the picture is not all wine and roses. there are some soft spots. exports have come in weaker than expected due