is not available. and the public interest is not just in the enhancement of financial efficiency but also in the limitation of contagion and the more effective achievement of financial stability. the hong kong monetary authority has devoted much effort to the building of the financial infrastructure of hong kong. i can assure all of you that it is well worth the effort and the amount of public money involved is really quite modest, although it may take a little time, and some appropriate prudential guidance concerning, for example, the management of payment and settlement risks, to convince potential users before traffic in these financial highways builds up. allow me to end this address with an advertisement. in hong kong we now have rtgs systems for the hong kong dollar, the us dollar, the euro and the rmb. they are all linked together to achieve cross - currency pvp in our time zone and they are linked up with our debt - clearing system to achieve dvp. we welcome external users accessing these systems for their payment, clearing and settlement needs, through directly becoming members of these systems, indirectly using the services through corresponding relationships with the existing members, or having them linked up with their own payment, clearing and settlement systems. some of you may, for example, be wondering how you could use the rmb for trade settlement, something that is being promoted by the mainland authorities. you can, of course make use of correspondent banks on the mainland, and therefore pay or receive rmb arising from imports and exports there, where the money stays. but should you wish to pay or receive rmb offshore where there is greater freedom in the mobilisation of the relevant funds, albeit for the time being there is still a dearth of rmb denominated financial instruments, you can do so in hong kong. thank you and i wish this year's sibos great success.

oversight regimes for the rating agencies, etc, etc. some of you may already be suffering from meeting fatigue and, like me, somewhat sick of these subjects already ; so i do not want to add to your agony. i am fortunate to have had the privilege of setting up and heading a central banking institution over a relatively long and exciting period in a significant international financial centre that is free and open. and as the time for retirement draws near, after sixteen and a half years, i do have a few reflections, from a rather different perspective than those of present pre - occupations, which i would like to share with others. they are nothing profound or technical ; just a few issues that i have found particularly challenging over the years. the first concerns a conflict. this is the conflict between the private, particularly short term, interest of financial intermediaries in maximising profits, and the public interest of effective financial intermediation that provides crucial support to the economy. this conflict has not been talked about much, if at all, even in central banking forums ; but it is, i am quite sure, one important contributing factor to the making of financial crises. financial intermediaries are often, and rightly so, rewarded handsomely for their innovative efforts, which, it is claimed, bring a higher rate of return for those with surplus money and a lower cost for those in need of money ; in other words, a narrowing of the intermediation spread, or greater financial efficiency. but there is an internal contradiction in this phenomenon. greater profits for financial institutions and larger bonuses for those employed in them mean, to me at least, a widening, rather than a narrowing, of the intermediation spread ; in other words, lower financial efficiency. yet we do observe greater profits and larger bonuses in the financial system along side ( probably apparent ) improvements in financial efficiency. for example, the innovative effort variously described as " securitisation ", " originate - and - distribute ", and " credit risk transfer " did raise the rate of investment return and lower the cost of credit. the explanation for this, if i may venture a guess, is in the time dimension. the observed narrowing of the intermediation spread comes at the expense of, or presages, a future, possibly sharp widening that often occurs in the context of a financial crisis. indeed, we have just had a case of co - occurrence of highly remunerated financial innovation and a temporary narrowing of the inter