decrease in prices of electric machinery. meanwhile, consumer prices continue to be somewhat weak owing to the decline in prices of imported products reflecting the past appreciation of the yen, although prices of petroleum products and electricity increased from the rise in crude oil prices. corporate service prices are still falling slowly. this report was written based on data and information available when the bank of japan monetary policy meeting was held on 14 september 2000. the bank ’ s view on recent economic and financial developments, determined by the policy board at the monetary policy meeting held on 14 september as the basis of monetary policy decisions. as for the outlook on prices, downward pressure on prices stemming from weak demand is declining significantly while an economic recovery is expected to continue moderately. upward pressure on prices is likely to arise temporarily from the increase in crude oil prices. on the other hand, in addition to the declining trend of machinery prices due to technological innovations, the decline in prices of consumer goods arising from the past appreciation of the yen and the streamlining of distribution channels will exert downward pressure on prices. thus, prices overall are expected to be stable or weak somewhat. in the financial market, the overnight call rate rose in response to the decision at the monetary policy meeting held on 11 august to change the guideline for money market operations, 3 and is generally moving around 0. 25 %. the amount of funds outstanding in the call money market has increased. interest rates on term instruments increased towards the end of august, reflecting the termination of the zero interest rate policy, and has been mostly stable thereafter. the japan premium remains negligible. yields on long - term government bonds followed an upward trend from the second half of august and rose temporarily to 1. 95 - 2. 0 %, but is recently moving in the range of 1. 8 - 1. 9 %. the yield spread between private bonds ( bank debentures and corporate bonds ) and government bonds remains mostly unchanged as a whole. stock prices rose from mid - to end - august but started to fall from late august and are recently moving around the level observed during mid - august. in the foreign exchange market, the yen - dollar exchange rate rose temporarily to around 109 - 110 yen in mid - august, but the yen appreciated thereafter. the yen is currently being traded in the range of 106 - 108 yen to the us dollar. with regard to corporate finance, private banks continue to be more active in extending loans mainly to blue - chip companies, while carefully evaluating the credit risks involved

, banks in india have just begun to exploit it as an effective non - branch delivery channel. the bankers will have to take a comprehensive view about their delivery channels. till now delivery channels were viewed in terms of cost and technology. delivery channels were devised focussing mainly on time and place advantage to the customers. however, with the continuing advances in wireless technology, flexibility in delivery channel device would be the forte of banks. successful adoption of wireless technology would help banks to offer not only any time, anywhere, but also any device banking. further, banks will have to build integrated delivery channels with both vertical and horizontal integration. in order to do so the banks should install an enabling and compatible multi - channel platform which should support and seamlessly integrate both the existing and future delivery channels. in today ’ s distributed computing environments, retail users sign onto many different applications and systems including email, networks, databases and web servers each typically requiring its own security procedure. the more systems users must navigate, the more ids and passwords they must remember. systems should be developed in such a way that a customer can use his atm card and his own atm pin ( personal identification number ) for customer authentication in a web transaction, which is normally not done in a web - based transaction or in any other delivery channel. the process cycle of the above single ‘ signon ’ should be that once the customer initiates the transaction by entering the pin from any of the delivery channels, the pin entered by the customer is verified with the pin details of the customer and once the verification yields a positive response the customer will be allowed to perform the transaction. the pin, which the user enters to perform the transaction, should be a unique pin that can be used by the customer to perform the transaction across any delivery channel. in short, the banks should have a comprehensive system which will allow them to deliver dynamic end - to - end customer service that can reshape customer base, maximise cross - selling opportunities and generate a positive roi ( return on investment ) in the changing business economy.