. malaysia as takaful & retakaful hub let me now turn to the final part of my address by sharing malaysia's latest initiatives to strengthen its position as a takaful and retakaful centre. i. mifc initiatives malaysia aims at enhancing its inter - linkages with the global islamic financial markets. among these are its continuous efforts to not only develop the financial infrastructure of the takaful industry but to also implement measures and initiatives that will strengthen our position as an international takaful and retakaful centre. besides allowing up to 49 % of foreign equity participation in domestic takaful operators, the malaysian government has also launched an initiative known as the malaysia international islamic financial centre or mifc. the mifc initiatives are specifically undertaken by the collective efforts of the country's financial and market regulators, including bank negara malaysia, the securities commission, the labuan offshore financial services authority and bursa malaysia, together with the participation of representatives of the banking, takaful and capital market sectors. it is aimed at building greater intermediation linkages between east asia, south asia and the middle east which will, in turn, further expand inter - regional trade and cross border investment flows. as part of these initiatives, foreign financial institutions are allowed to establish international islamic banks, international takaful operators, as well as international currency business units to undertake international currency business in islamic finance with non - residents in malaysia or abroad through a locally incorporated entity or a branch. this entity is granted attractive tax package in terms of a 10 - year tax holiday. to date, ten financial institutions have been granted approval to set up international currency business units, and one institution has been granted approval to set up an international islamic bank. the strong sukuk market in malaysia that accounted for about two thirds of the global outstanding sukuk issued in 2007 would further provide a conducive environment for the mifc activities. ii. new retakaful framework malaysian government has also focus ed its efforts towards widening and deepening the retakaful sector in complementing the growth and expansion of the takaful industry. i wish to announce and declare here that bank negara malaysia is inviting strong and qualified applicants to make malaysia as their centre for retakaful activities. the application for retakaful licenses are open to qualified local and foreign players. besides fulfilling the need for retakaful support of the takaful operators, the new retakaful licencees will assist in

strengthen loan quality is that of the valuation of property. in a recent survey on real estate lending by bou, the majority of commercial banks reported concerns about valuation standards and some indicated that they have faced challenges realizing the value for collateral because of inflated valuation reports. a key gap appears to be the lack of a uniform industry standard. i think that it would be useful for the uba to work with stakeholders to develop common guidelines and standards in this area. looking ahead ; i am confident that the banking industry in uganda can innovate to reduce the cost of financial services, broaden the range of services available to customers and widen access to financial services, in particular through the adoption of digital financial services. since 2009 we have witnessed the exponential growth of mobile money transactions, which is radically transforming the way in which payments and money transfers are made in uganda. for instance, in the year to june 2017 ; there were over one billion transactions worth over shs. 52 trillion ( about half of uganda ’ s nominal gdp ) on the mobile money platforms. the challenge now is to bring about a similar transformation in the way in which other types of financial services, such as savings and credit products, can be delivered to customers and at lower costs. finally, the advent of digital financial platforms such as mobile money was seen by some commentators as competition to the formal financial services sector. to the contrary, these digital platforms have crowded in more users into the formal financial system, with the number of accounts in commercial banks increasing from 4. 5 million as at june 2015 to 7. 4 million as at june 2017 ; while number of accounts in financial institutions licensed by the bou ( commercial banks, credit institutions and mdis ) rose by 3. 3 million over a two year period to 9. 3 million accounts as at june 2017. thank you for listening and i wish you a joyous festive season.