of singapore. governor subbarao has been a staunch advocate of rbi ’ s pro - active role in addressing financial inclusion to help those underserved. as the world ’ s second most populous country, india has faced an uphill task to expand financial inclusion, especially to individuals in remote areas. but the numbers speak for themselves : in 2011, just 35 percent of adults have bank accounts according to the world bank ’ s global findex report. by 2017 that number has dramatically risen to 80 percent. in his keynote address this morning governor subbarao will share with us india ’ s remarkable experience on improving financial inclusion by using digital technologies. please join me in giving a warm welcome to governor subbarao. 4 / 4

them? how can we make use of these digital developments in our policy setting? and, what roles could central banks play in promoting new technologies and new digital platforms? to begin approaching these questions, we first have to admit that the boundary for new innovations or technologies is limitless and their potential impacts, at current juncture, may not be fully uncovered. there are things that we know and things that we don ’ t. and even what we know and can identify today, our perceptions may be obscured by our perceived understanding based on past world views. there is a fine line between the knowns and the unknowns. navigating through these will require striking the right balance between having an open mindset to allow innovations to prosper while ensuring that key risks can be contained. for the “ known territory, ” essentially developments that we have begun to identify use cases, can control the risks, and believe that the benefits will outweigh the costs, we must continue to refine our understanding, expand our knowledge, and find ways to streamline them into our policymaking process. this is so that the perception or the extent of what we know becomes clearer. for instance, growing popularity of internet - of - things — from usage of smartphones to various data - transmitting devices — has created massive amount of individual - level and transaction - level data. these “ big data ” can help unlock our understanding of the behavioral patterns, perhaps, not even realized by individual data owners. at the bank of thailand, we have begun employing big data analysis in macroeconomic, banking sector, and financial market assessments to complement our policymaking process. this has helped ensure that our policy actions are evidence - based and timely. at the same time, necessary steps are taken to validate the integrity and quality of data used as well as to safeguard data privacy. we are just scratching the surface of the potential usage of big data and much more work will be done in this area in the years to come. many other “ known ” areas still require further refinement : from understanding the impacts of deepening adoption of digital technology on productions, labor markets, inflation dynamics, and hence conduct of monetary policy ; 2 / 4 to the emergence of cryptocurrencies and associated payment technologies that may improve financial inclusion and incorporate ‘ smart - contracts ’, but may have implications on financial stability, consumer protection and even the environment ; and to the various proof - of - concept initiatives using dlt or blockchain on