that growth in financial services must also serve to enhance economic opportunity for all. since the establishment of the financial inclusion framework in 2011, major inroads have been made in widening the accessibility to financial services in malaysia. agent banking has been a key strategy to improve access, particularly in the rural areas. 92 % of our population has some form of access to financing. moving forward, expanding public access to financial services will remain important for the remaining 8 % of the bis central bankers ’ speeches unbanked population in malaysia. there will also be greater emphasis on the quality of services provided. the social impact of greater financial inclusion is significant as it helps improve people ’ s lives. in this respect, banks have a critical role to play to make it easier for people to save, make payments and obtain affordable loans to improve standards of living and build more resilient communities. it would be a remiss to talk about the future of banking without embracing this very fundamental role of banks. as our economy becomes even more financialised, it is important that banks strike a balance between legitimate profit - seeking goals, and their responsibility to provide the public with full and fair access to financial services. some banks today are still falling short of expectations to offer basic banking services to the people who only need such services. we have observed poor communications by the front - line staff of such banks on the basic banking products which must be offered by all banks. in some cases, prohibitive conditions are attached to the opening of basic banking accounts in clear violation of bank negara malaysia ’ s requirements. this must change. in offering basic banking services, banks should also leverage on technological advancement that can support inclusive finance initiatives. these include adopting more innovative delivery channels, leveraging on big data to reach a wider community and to offer suitable products that are priced affordably. concluding remarks the world as we know it is set to change dramatically just as it had over the last few decades, except that future changes will happen at a much more rapid pace, and in sectors where we least expect it. the ability of banks to adapt will be critical to its relevance. more likely than not, banks that are agile and have absolute clarity on their value proposition for their customer, society and wider economy, will be the ones that will endure. banking as we know today will no doubt change in form as the future takes shape. what is more important that the core purpose of banking remains intact – that is to provide reliable passage for resources to move

central bankers and international economists to explain these phenomena – also by giving technocratic speeches that aren ’ t much fun to listen to. and as we ’ re still at the beginning of this conference, i ’ ll try to concentrate on the very fundamentals. in economic terms, we have to deal with asymmetries – imbalances that exist for a longer time or that build up slowly over time. there may be differences in economic development, but we should not abstract from differences in infrastructure, institutions, and political and economic philosophies. all of those differences across borders are quite common. you may be thinking of specific regional disparities among african countries right now. but also in the euro area, “ convergence ” was a key word from day one. even today, although almost all 1 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches member states in the euro area are experiencing an economic upturn by now, economic cycles are not synchronous. and unemployment rates are highly divergent, standing at over 22 percent in greece and below 7 percent in ireland. so even 25 years after we initiated a far - reaching treaty of european integration, and after 18 years of sharing a common currency, we are not marching in step. those asymmetries and structural differences between neighbouring countries are not necessarily a bad thing. but in a monetary union, dissimilar developments have extensive implications for two important challenges : first and well - known to everyone here in this room, given its construction, a monetary union is more prone to imbalances because there is no longer a national currency with a floating exchange rate as a means of countering imbalances and regional economic shocks. however cruel a sudden revaluation may be for some parts of an open economy, it is very useful as an automatic response to crises. without nominal exchange rate flexibility, economies need to adjust through adjustments of the real exchange rate which is much more painful in practice. as a second challenge, in a monetary union the community may ultimately bear the consequences for imbalances that have emerged on the level of sovereign member states. this has been an unequivocal lesson from the crisis in the euro area. to describe how asymmetries became imbalances, let me briefly recap that large capital flow imbalances had built up for several reasons in the run - up to the crisis. then, suddenly, a mistrust overburdened regional financing, the economy, and especially fiscal cushion