high cost poses a barrier to inclusion. greater access to payment or transactional accounts can be an effective on - ramp to a broader range of financial services and boost our efforts toward financial inclusion. in addition, a shift to electronic payments will facilitate efficiency, which is convenience at the right cost. this will lead to lower business costs and higher consumer expenditure, a driver of economic growth in many economies. in fact, a cross country study found that a 10 % increase in the share of electronic payments was correlated with a. 5 % increase in consumer spending. 1 this efficiency will also drive business innovation and promote greater transparency in transactions. all these are also crucial in preparing for a more integrated asean economic community. le sar, porteous, introduction to national payments system, national payments system institute, 2013. bis central bankers ’ speeches nevertheless, while we celebrate this milestone today, we realize that this is just the beginning. there are still things to do and bear in mind as we take this journey forward. let me focus on three : first, it is important to establish well - defined rules, policies and processes to set the stage for areas of cooperation and areas of competition. this will facilitate the entry of new players, create a level playing field and provide the framework for inter - operability. second, there is a need to upgrade current arrangements to enable the participation of payment service providers, including non - banks. this will support the environment for innovation and efficiency in payment channels and the development new and inclusive business models. third and last is to always have the customer in mind. the retail payment system should provide each of its users with transparency, certainty and reliability. these are the critical steps in this journey ; which will surely lead us to a destination that will benefit all – a truly inclusive and efficient national retail payment system that promotes electronic payments in the country. these benefits reveal the very purpose of this journey. i have no doubt that the members of our banking community will all continue to work together toward this end of providing better payment services to our people. our next step is to collaborate on how to best implement not only the merger of atm and pos or point of sales operations, but the overall integration of our payments system. finally, i thank and congratulate everyone responsible for this milestone event. mabuhay ang banking system! mabuhay po tayong lahat. maraming, maraming salamat! bis central bankers ’ speeches

], the economy would slow down. the slow economy is due to the high cost of imports and, unluckily, the high cost of some local agricultural products, [ which ] has reduced money for discretionary spending. this, together with the policy rate increases, give us an even more chance of seeing below 4 percent inflation next year. our policy rates are not in response to the current inflation per se ; they are forward - looking because we take very seriously our inflationtargeting mandate. if inflation is high next year, this would not be due to external supply shocks anymore but due to second - order effects. we notice, for instance, that wages are rising and transport fare petitions. there's very little we can do about this. but absent other shocks, we expect inflation to be below 4 percent next year and closer to 3 percent than to 4 thereafter. my point is we did not take away growth [ with our tightening ]. what we did was create bigger growth opportunities next year and the next. the other way to look at it is : we might have lost a little bit of output this year, but if we had postponed our actions, we would have lost more in the following years because the pressure to raise rates would have been even greater if we had not acted on inflation this year. in tagalog, mas mabuti ang maaga kaysa magaling. don't see our moves as being anti - growth. we're actually laying the groundwork for better growth in the coming years. another point : our banks are in a good position to absorb losses : there's enough provisioning, and capitalization is quite high – much higher than what's required. not all non - financial corporates are healthy, but that's the very nature of capitalism. in any distribution of firms in any capitalist economy, some will be doing much better or worse 2 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches than average, but on average, [ the banks are ] quite strong. in my experience with the monetary board, never were we told by the government that our policy rate was too high. never were we told by the government to be gentle to a bank. the independence of the central bank is well understood by authorities, most of all by the current secretary of finance. thank you. 3 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches