riding on the highly successful and popular e - commerce, payment or social media platforms that they have developed. the paradigm of these newly emerged platforms is that it is highly “ customer - centric ”, meaning they design everything to provide what the customers want, taking care of many practical and life - style needs of customers. however, when it comes to finance, tech companies need to realise and accept that they have to earn the trust and confidence of customers if they wish to handle their savings and investments. on the other hand, banks need to appreciate and accept that they must revamp the way they offer financial services to their customers. it is true that, compared with unregulated entities, there is a high degree of public trust in banks, but customers now demand much faster and convenient services, not just in payments but also over a wide range of financial services, many of which are now made possible by the advancement in technology. banks must become more “ customer - centric ” by offering highly personalised services to meet what the customers actually want rather than pushing out products or services that the firms think the customers should have. so what does it mean on the ground? i believe that in a couple of years ’ time, there will be a high degree of convergence in the way in which banks and tech firms conduct their businesses and compete in the arena of finance. this means that the landscape of banking and finance will undergo a profound change during this process of convergence between banking and technology. so how does hong kong move from here to there and what role will the hkma, as 1 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches bank supervisor, play in preparing the banking sector for the change? first of all, let ’ s take stock of where we stand at present on electronic or digital banking. hong kong is the premier international financial centre in asia, and has been at the forefront of smart banking in terms of digital or internet banking. we now have 12 million internet bank accounts and over hk $ 7 trillion worth of banking transactions are conducted on the internet each month. by and large, banks in hong kong are offering safe and efficient banking services to customers, both through the conventional branches and through digital or internet banking. however, in view of the explosive advancement in technology in the last few years, we believe that conditions now exist for banking in hong kong to rise to the next higher level. i would highlight a couple of technological developments that form the building blocks for the new era of smart banking : (

a level playing field, stimulating interest in hong kong among islamic countries, encouraging product development, and raising market awareness within hong kong, particularly through the educational work of the treasury markets association. all of this work looks both to the past and to the future for inspiration. looking to the past, we have the still - recent experience of the asian financial crisis, one element of which was the undeveloped state of some of our financial markets, in particular the debt market. many of the market - development initiatives on which we have been working have been intended to address these deficiencies. more recently, the current financial crisis serves as a reminder that some aspects of market development may be taken too far, where, for example, they privilege the process of intermediation and neglect the financial and economic realities that lie behind it. the caution inculcated by the asian financial crisis, and a natural conservatism in many markets in this region, seem to have helped us avoid the worst excesses we have seen in more developed markets. looking more positively to the future, this region is poised to become the centre of economic growth and wealth creation in the world. indeed we are already a long way down that path. so far, a great deal of the wealth created has been diverted into markets elsewhere in the world. market development in this region, on a foundation of efficient infrastructure and sound regulation, will help retain more of that wealth for investment within the region. this evening ‘ s gala event celebrates the 40th anniversary of one of the world ’ s foremost financial publications. it is therefore only proper to say something about the vital role of the media in financial market development. the media can, i think, be seen as a kind of complementary, parallel infrastructure to the financial infrastructure that i have briefly described. the media are, of course, more visible, and much more diverse, but they also make use of similar technologies, whether advanced or traditional, and at various points they intersect with the financial infrastructure. modern markets are, in fact, dependent on the media, whether in their provision of real - time information second by second, or in the more reflective analysis of market trends, or in the exposure of scandals and malpractices. it is no coincidence that hong kong is both a financial centre and a world media centre. at least seventeen international news agencies, 29 international or regional newspapers, and another 29 magazines have a presence in hong kong, and all of them have some interest in financial affairs. we have