on cooperation than integration. so the second question : if this is so, why are there various monetary initiatives going on in asia? the way i see it is that even though the level of economic integration is presently still not fully advanced, the financial linkage and contagion affect is very high. part of this may have to do with the fact that asian countries lend a good deal of money to each other. should disturbances occur in a creditor country, their banks may tend to rein in their reaches to preserve liquidity thus worsen the affect on the borrower country. another reason may be that lenders outside asia tend to look at asia as a block, not differentiating one country from another much. therefore, in order to lessen the risk of crisis and contagion, we have to find ways for the asian countries to prevent crisis or deal better with imbalances. this means dealing better with capital flows, or rather the sudden reversal of capital flows. now comes the third question : which initiative can be most effective in dealing with capital flows? the asian governments have cooperated in certain schemes. the chiang mai initiative whereby asian countries sign swap agreements with each other to provide temporary financing to each other in emergencies. even though the combined amounts exceed $ 31. 5 billion, it is still small compared to the volume of foreign exchange trade in the world. we also have a system of mutual surveillance, but asian culture sometimes does not go for direct confrontation to such particular issues. the best safeguard, in my opinion, is therefore to have stronger structures in asian countries to deal with financial shocks. this is why i attach much hope in the asian bond markets initiative being proposed. this leads me to the fourth question : what is the asian bond markets initiative? what does it involve? the asian bond markets initiative can be viewed at 2 levels. the first is the international level. the asian names have been issuing bonds in the international market for quite some time, in major currencies – mostly us dollar. this market is already well developed. some people may say that nothing needs be done further by asian governments at this level. the market will do it. however, efforts are being made by ministry of finance officials to introduce new products – perhaps by securitization, by combining asian names or a few asian currencies, hoping to come up with an attractive product. they hope to bring new benefits to bond investors, but it will be up to the market to determine whether the

speech at the press conference : collaboration on adopting standardized qr code for e - payment dr. veerathai santiprabhob, governor wednesday 30 august 2017 bank of thailand … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … executives from american express, jcb international, mastercard, visa and unionpay international president of thai bankers'association president of government financial institutions council president of association of international banks president of thailand electronic payment trade association president of the telecommunications association of thailand under the royal patronage press members and distinguished guests, i am very pleased that all payment service providers in thailand are here to announce their collaboration on adopting qr code standard for payments. this is considered an important milestone for which the standardized qr code has been implemented in thailand. it is also the first time that five international payment card network providers and thai financial service providers have mutually agreed to adopt the same qr code standard in providing payment services in thailand. it is recognized that electronic payment ( e - payment ) is a crucial component in driving a digital economy, where technologies have been utilized to deliver better services for consumers and businesses, to increase financial inclusion, to raise efficiency and to reduce costs ; thus, enhancing the country ’ s competitiveness and supporting ‘ ease of doing business ’ principle. during the past several years, bank of thailand ( bot ) has been working on many important projects to encourage the development of e - payment systems and innovations including : - driving national e - payment master plan : the two main projects, promptpay service and the expansion of card acceptance devices ( edcs ) throughout the country, have been developed and promoted and have got continually good responses. for promptpay service, the registration has reached 32 million identification numbers with an accumulated fund transfers over 100 billion baht. - migrating atm and debit cards to chip cards : by the end of 2019, atm and debit cards must be changed to chip cards in order to enhance security of card payment. this policy coincides with the growth of debit card transactions used by thai people. - elevating security protection in mobile payment transactions : the bot has cooperated with the office of the national broadcasting and telecommunications commission and the telecommunications association of thailand under the royal patronage to strengthen mobile payment security. from the increasing trend of mobile payment volume which has heightened by 100 % from the previous year, we recognize that mobile will be a major payment channel in the near future ; therefore,