our conservative investment strategy, which balances the need to hold sufficient liquidity to support the conduct of monetary policy with the aim to preserve the international purchasing power of the foreign reserves. mas ’ portfolio is well - diversified with a risk profile that is commensurate with our role as a central bank. 62 i will stop here, and will be happy to take your questions. bis central bankers ’ speeches

the number of the traditional financial service providers does not necessarily translate into a corresponding increase in access to financial services among the population. i believe it is this mismatch that calls for the need to examine the role that the non traditional platforms, such the mobile phones, can play in enhancing greater access to financial services. chairman, the 2009 finscope survey highlighted a number of barriers to financial inclusion, which were broadly categorized into the physical access or proximity to financial institutions affordability of financial products bis central bankers ’ speeches appropriateness of financial products regulation barriers such as know your customer requirements chairman, we know, for instance, that the apparent high cost of providing banking services to a population that is largely subsistence and therefore financially challenged excludes many from accessing financial services. brick and mortar establishments are expensive to set up and even when they are set up, distance to the nearest branch for many, particularly for those in the rural areas becomes a problem. the findings relating to the cost of providing financial services contained again of the finscope™ zambia survey ( 2005 ) goes some way in underscoring the nature of the problem. the survey found that about 32 % of the banked reported that it costs them between k5, 000 – k10, 000 to get to their bank while about 26 % spend between k11, 000 – k25, 000. at these cost levels it is not difficult to see why certain segments of our population do not actively seek financial services. the mobile payment system does therefore address some of these challenges and consequently can be an important platform for expanding the delivery of financial services. in some respects it complements conventional financial services or products. in other respects it makes up for the weakness of the conventional financial service providers. with mobile payments, the cost of travel to a financial service provider is reduced to pressing a button, the risks associated with carrying cash are managed by simply securing a pin number. since the mobile telephone industry has seen tremendous growth in its coverage, mobile payments seems to be the inevitable retail payment method that reaches out to large segments of the population a way that the conventional ones do not. chairperson, notwithstanding these advantages, mobile payment platforms are not without challenges. at the centre of these challenges is the need to protect the consumer or user of mobile payment platforms. undoubtedly, the number of people with access to mobile payment services in zambia has significantly increased since the early days of celpay. however, for us at the bank of zambia, as regulators we have taken note of