in flux and constantly changing, we look at our north star, our three pillars, which remain constant : price stability, financial stability, and an efficient and secure payments and settlements system. let me go over our plans for this year to ensure that we keep delivering on our three pillars. 1 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches on price stability. based on our inflation projections, inflation may have already peaked last december. of course, the [ actual ] numbers will come out soon. from that point on, we see inflation slowing down in the first half of 2023 and settling between 2. 0 - 4. 0 %, our target range, by the third quarter of 2023. by the fourth quarter, and hopefully for the rest of 2024, inflation is expected to approach the low end of the target range due to base effects. what does this mean for us? of course, our monetary settings will continue to be based on and be guided by data. and of course, we are also ready to explain when our forecasts are quite different from what actually happened because we can account for them in our models. by the way, some models do not have this ; they use the past [ figures ] and gut feel on what inflation will be - and it does [ it ] quite well. the problem with these models is they cannot explain itself when it's wrong unlike our [ bsp's ] models that have very specific exogenous variables. aside from investments in better models, we are now leveraging big data and advanced analytics to improve further our forecasting and analytical abilities. [ our ] investments in better models, technology, and big data help us ensure that our actions are responsive to the needs of the time and help us as well in our communications. now, our second pillar : financial stability. we look to the strength of our banks as a barometer of the economy's health. if banks are actively lending to households and businesses, then the economy is in a much stronger position. and as we all know, when banks over - lend, this usually is followed by long periods of slower lending and we hope [ that ] our regulations, our supervision, prevent that from happening. fortunately, the philippine banking system is on much more solid footing than it was back then. both regulators and the regulated institutions learned lessons from past crises and built their buffers in anticipation of future shocks. so, when we look at all the indicators at this time, you can clearly

policy and the coin recirculation program. of course, for those of you who are with the bsp for a long time, this is the bigger bread and butter for many, many decades, and we will get better and better in this as well. readying the bsp's operations for the future at this point, let me proceed to other aspects of bsp operations : reserve management, for one. in keeping with our sustainable central banking strategy, we plan to be a signatory to the united nation principles for responsible investment. we also are looking at developing a responsible investment charter, which will guide the integration of sustainability tests with financial assessments. although by imf metrics - the imf assessing reserve adequacy ( ara ) - our reserves are [ assessed as ] " high ", we do think that given all the things that are often happening, there is no reason to be complacent, to let our reserves go down too sharply. on financial inclusion, which started out as an advocacy to a national strategy and now, a strategic outcome of whoever is the governor. we have several initiatives in this regard. we have launched the credit risk database project, which will produce a credit scoring model for small and medium enterprises [ with the aim of reducing dependence on collateral ]. of course, it is of great importance ; [ it helps with ] the problem when the people who have collateral are not the only ones who need the loans. 3 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches meanwhile, our paleng - qr ph program will be building on the successful launch in davao and baguio and replicated in other parts of the country, namely pasig, naga, lapu - lapu, and tagbilaran. now, on financial consumer protection and consumer assistance. starting this year, we will exercise the authority conferred by the financial products and services consumer protection act or fcpa that was enacted last year and will soon issue the rules of procedure for mediation and adjudication by january of the current year. we're truly living up to our label as a quasi - judicial authority. financial education is a key component of consumer protection and we are working with various partners to empower filipinos with the skills to understand finance. and with our regulations and our guidance, disputes should be quickly resolved and settled. on regional operations. we propose adding more gold buying stations so more gold sellers could access them. we aim to establish these in butuan