gross settlement system has registered a phenomenal growth, reaching an average of around rmb700 billion each working day. 4. i won ’ t bore you further with the numbers as i am sure you are very familiar with them. surely it is useful for us to pause, look back, take stock and try to think of ways in which we can continue to excel as we go forward from where we are. so without further ado, let me quickly turn to the main theme of my remarks this morning : “ what does it take to build a successful global hub for offshore rmb businesses? ” the key to success, if i may summarise it, lies in the acronym : “ pips ”. 5. “ pips ” stands for “ policy headroom, infrastructure and people / products ”. let me cover these three elements in the reverse order. for people and products, i have said many times that for any financial centre to thrive and out - compete other centres, the crucial building block would be its people and products. it goes without saying that a world class financial centre must have the right people designing and distributing the right products that serve the needs of the financial consumers. this is an important and core component of the soft power that i have been talking about in the last few years. it is a key attribute that differentiates a global hub from the other financial centres. people and products fall into the area in which the financial industry, including the individual firms, practitioners and industry bodies like the tma, can and should play a dominant role. i am sure that you will agree with me bis central bankers ’ speeches that policy makers and regulators, while having the responsibility to safeguard financial stability and to accord appropriate protection to financial consumers, are not really well suited to get too involved in gauging market demand and designing financial products that would best meet the requirements of the consumers. 6. having said that, policy makers and regulators do have a crucial role to play in respect of policy headroom and infrastructure, which are the first two elements of “ pips ”. let me elaborate further. 7. clearly there could not be any offshore rmb markets if the mainland did not make a move in 2009 to change its policy of not allowing the use of rmb in cross - border trade and other transactions. but of course, the mainland authorities were and still are understandably wanting to open up the capital account on an incremental basis, taking one step at a time

##ly with the banking industry to produce the best practices for the nfc mobile payment, which was released in 2013. 20. this common set of technical standards has laid the foundation for achieving security and interoperability among different m - payment services. in concrete terms : i ) consumers can use a smartphone to download not just one payment service, but different payment services of their choice ; ii ) consumers can switch to a new network or change to a new smartphone without disrupting the continuity of the existing m - payment services ; and iii ) all m - payment service providers are required to comply with common security and data protection measures that are in conformity with international standards. “ hard ” infrastructure – market - driven approach 21. the second recommendation of the consultant was about the “ hard ” infrastructure. the consultant recommended that the hkma should, based on the agreed standards, encourage and facilitate the market to develop a robust infrastructure to drive its growth. 22. international experience indicates that the hard infrastructure to support nfc mobile payment can be achieved through a market - driven approach or a government - led approach. after careful consideration, we decided to adopt a market - driven approach, for several compelling reasons. i ) first, emerging payment technologies are fast - evolving. payment service providers are closer to the market and are therefore able to make fast business decisions to develop infrastructure and services that would respond to the market needs in a timely manner. ii ) second, the success of new retail payment products and services hinges on personal experience of the individual user. here, again, market players, who know better than anyone else the tastes of their customers, are in a good position to develop payment products and services that truly fit their customers ’ needs and therefore have better chance of success. iii ) third, a domestic card association had indicated early on that it would build a shared nfc platform for its member banks, which is able to support over 20 banks based on statistics from octopus, hkicl, hkma. bis central bankers ’ speeches to provide nfc payment services. the project would to a large extent achieve the objective of having a piece of interoperable infrastructure. 23. so far, the market - driven approach has served us well. one stored value card company has launched such services, so have four other banks, in partnership with two major card associations. by the end of this year, the shared nfc payment platform i mentioned should be ready for operation. iv. sound regulatory framework 24. while hong kong is well - positioned to