national bank. the creators of our central bank law wanted to “ bring europe to serbia ”, by changing – or, as we would say it today – by harmonizing our legislation with europe ’ s. at the end, please let me remark that for me personally, and for my colleagues as well, being here today is a privilege as this is a historical moment for the national bank of serbia and all its employees. and i can assure you that we will continue to do our very best to make sure the nbs stays at the forefront of the economic transition process in all areas it is in charge of : monetary policy, supervision of the financial sector, payment, etc. i wish the length of the road of serbia and the nbs to the european union and the european system of central banks depended on our performance because then we would get there in a record time!

radovan jelasic : developments in the serbian financial sector speech by mr radovan jelasic, governor of the national bank of serbia, on the occasion of the opening of the eighth forum and exhibition of banking technology “ tehnobank 2008 ”, belgrade, 9 april 2008. * * * ladies and gentlemen, allow me to greet you on behalf of the national bank of serbia on the occasion of the opening of the eighth “ tehnobank ” meeting which was first organized at the outset of transition of our economy. i wish to thank the organizers for a very interesting programme which, just as the transition itself, forces us to face up to new challenging ideas. the serbian financial sector is developing rapidly and i wish to single out three topics from this year ’ s agenda which the nbs is particularly keen to develop : • business continuity and disaster recovery • mobile payment services • new sepa regulations why these three? first, because quality and efficiency in performing financial services are of vital interest to any central bank. implementation of the technology which enables business continuity and disaster recovery is a sign of maturity of both the banking industry and the banking market environment itself. the nbs expects that application of such technologies will increase in the near future and, with that purpose in mind, in cooperation with the bank of england, plans to organize an international seminar on this topic to take place in belgrade on 13 through 15 may 2008. the nbs will host this meeting to discuss the targets, significance and the experiences of central banks in managing business continuity as well as the strategy for disaster recovery and averting threats to the normal conduct of business operations. one thing is for certain – in the 21st century, liquidity and solvency are important but are not sufficient to ensure stability of the financial sector if business continuity and disaster recovery do not function immaculately. let us take the uk example of the northern rock where a mistake in that respect actually led in great part to the first instance of bank nationalization after more than a century. mobile payments, however, are a chance for serbia to jumpstart technological development and to implement from the start the most innovative technologies. while many countries are still at the stage of devising extended pilot programs for mobile payments, in many serbian cities mobile telephony is already used for payment of parking space fees, while payment of top up fees for prepaid mobile telephony through sms messaging service is already a matter of everyday use. it gives me pleasure