when it comes to the central bank, we propose that we do not have access to personal data. and it will be for you, as co - legislators, to decide on the balance between privacy and other important public policy objectives like anti - money laundering, countering terrorism financing, preventing tax evasion or guaranteeing sanctions compliance. on our side, we have been working on solutions that would preserve privacy by default and by design, thereby giving people control of their payment data. [ 16 ] to this end, we are also closely engaging with the european data protection supervisor and the european data protection board. using a digital euro easily and everywhere in the euro area as public money, a digital euro would be a european public good which all citizens and firms should be able to access and use without barriers. this should be the case regardless of who their intermediary is or which member state they are located in. offering universal accessibility and usability would be key for a digital euro to play its role as a monetary anchor and to fulfil people ’ s expectations. feedback from citizens [ 17 ] reflects the value of having a payment instrument which is always an option for the payer. citizens may not always pay with cash, but they like to always have the option to do so. the same logic applies to a digital euro. as co - legislators, you can adopt regulatory measures that would ensure widespread acceptance of the digital euro in payments while ensuring that citizens have broad access to the digital euro. but while these two factors are vital foundations for the digital euro, they alone are not sufficient. attractive functionalities and convenient user experience would be equally key for widespread adoption. we therefore want to design a digital euro with online and offline functionalities. these will allow it to serve different use cases [ 18 ] and offer users different benefits. for example, an offline functionality [ 19 ] would give payments a level of privacy that is close to that of cash. it would also increase resilience as it would work without internet access. we are also envisaging two options for conveniently using a digital euro. first, supervised intermediaries could integrate the digital euro into their own platforms. in this way, users could easily access the digital euro through the banking apps and interfaces they are already familiar with. second, the eurosystem is considering a new digital euro app [ 20 ], which would include only basic payment functionalities performed by intermediaries. the app would ensure that no matter where

of this is our new rules on collective investment undertakings, which will underpin bahrain ’ s position as the region ’ s leading funds centre, by introducing – for the first time – regulations specifically geared for expert funds and other alternative asset classes, such as hedge funds. collectively, these initiatives have aimed to ensure that bahrain maintains its leading role as a financial centre, in terms of responding to evolving market demands. i am pleased to say that these efforts were positively acknowledged by the imf last year, in their financial sector assessment review of bahrain. but we are not complacent, and we will be continuing to develop our regulations in light of market needs and evolving standards. on this note, let me now turn to my colleague from the edb, shaikh mohammed bin khalifa al - khalifa, who will present in more detail bahrain ’ s financial sector.