important – a recent mckinsey report 2 indicates that investors are more likely to invest in shariah - compliant products if returns are comparable to that of conventional products. in facilitating the growth of islamic finance in singapore, mas works with financial institutions to ensure a level playing field between islamic and conventional financing deals. this includes the waiver of additional stamp duties incurred by qualifying islamic financing arrangements involving immovable property. in developing the islamic financial services market during its nascent stage, we also provide tax incentives to help offset the initial additional costs. in february this year, our finance minister announced a 5 % concessionary tax rate on the income derived from qualifying shariah compliant financial activities. in addition, all investors will enjoy tax exemption on income derived from qualifying sukuks. this is to create a seamless framework for the industry in singapore, although i understand that in the gcc and malaysia the tax framework is even more favourable. the various changes in our regulatory and tax framework are done in partnership with the industry. based on our latest consultation, to promote the further growth of islamic finance and to meet the needs of financial institutions conducting shariah - compliant activities in singapore, i am pleased to announce that singapore will develop a facility to make available sovereign - rated sukuks. our facility is likely to be different from traditional issuances in two respects. first, the issuance will be on a reverse enquiry basis, which means we will issue according to the needs of financial institutions in singapore conducting islamic finance. second, at the initial stage, we plan to price these against the liquid singapore government securities market. this will provide a transparent price discovery mechanism for this new instrument in singapore. as the s $ sukuk market grows and deepens in time, it can then develop its own pricing benchmarks. the design of our sukuk issuance facility reflects our effort to harness the price discovery potential of existing liquid instruments, while adhering carefully to shariah principles. further details of this arrangement will be announced in due course and we look forward to your feedback. we will also make significant progress in integrating financial markets when we provide greater market access for islamic service providers to operate across borders. i am glad that regulators in the middle east and south - east asia have been very supportive in this area. for instance, several major islamic banks in the middle east now have operations in malaysia. more recently, several middle eastern banks have also established themselves in singapore. the first home

##rs resolution service ( abhaile ), the personal insolvency regime, and a court mentor service. collectively, these protections have kept the vast majority of distressed borrowers in their homes, despite the scale of mortgage arrears experienced following the financial crisis. at the end of 2018, less than one in sixteen mortgages relating to private dwelling homes are in arrears over 90 days. in 2018 there were over twenty two thousand ( 22, 171 ) new restructure arrangements for mortgages relating to private dwelling homes. this brings the total number of private dwelling homes loans categorised as restructured to over 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches one hundred and ten thousand ( 111, 504 ) as at the end of 2018. in addition, over three thousand distressed borrowers have secured personal insolvency arrangements, which return borrowers to solvency, while keeping them in their home in over 95 % of cases. the enactment of this bill will not offer new or existing borrowers any additional regulatory consumer protection and it could have negative consequences for the functioning of the mortgage market, with wider implications for all mortgage borrowers. functioning of the mortgage market the enactment of the bill in its current form would hamper the ability of banks to access marketbased sources of financing using mortgages as collateral, such as securitisations and covered bonds. access to such forms of finance helps diversify the funding base and achieve lower funding costs relative to issuing unsecured bonds. constraints on the ability to mobilise mortgages as collateral to raise funding through these market - based channels could ultimately limit the availability, or increase the cost, of mortgage credit. at a time when the severe dysfunction in the irish mortgage market is finally easing, this bill could, unintentionally, slow or even reverse that progress. it would certainly give further pause for thought for any firm considering entering the irish market by increasing the cost of doing business in ireland and effectively limiting the funding available for mortgage lending. we do not believe this in the interests of current and future mortgage borrowers. financial stability during the financial crisis, the ability of irish banks to post securitisations and covered bonds as collateral was crucial to allow them to borrow from the eurosystem to meet their acute liquidity needs. total monetary policy lending provided to irish - domiciled banks rose to a high of €140 billion towards the end of 2010, of which approximately 40 % was collateral