yandraduth googoolye : importance of corporate governance at icsa mauritius graduation ceremony speech by mr yandraduth googoolye, governor of the bank of mauritius, at the icsa mauritius graduation ceremony, port louis, 15 november 2018. * * * mr ambrish maharahaje, icsa president, mauritius branch mr john heaton, icsa president for united kingdom, republic of ireland and associated territories mr simon osborne, icsa chief executive for united kingdom, republic of ireland and associated territories council members and staff of the icsa mauritius association dear graduates ladies and gentlemen good afternoon. thank you for making me part of the celebration of your success. your hard work is being rewarded by earning an internationally - recognised qualification that icsa confers upon you. i congratulate you for the academic commitment you have displayed and for the passion within you to contribute to the business community and the country ’ s progress. the companies act makes provision for a company secretary in both private and public sector companies. section 166 of the act states that “ the duties of a secretary shall include but shall not be restricted to ( a ) providing the board with guidance as to its duties, responsibilities and powers ; ( b ) informing the board of all legislation relevant to or affecting meetings of shareholders and directors and reporting at any meetings and the filing of any documents required of the company and any failure to comply with such legislation ”. this clearly demonstrates the importance of such a function in an organization. and the board of directors of a company have to ensure that the secretary has the requisite knowledge and experience to discharge his / her functions. the role of a company secretary is also visible in the 2016 national code of corporate governance, where it is explicitly mentioned that “ all organisations should have a company secretary. the company secretary acts as a vital bridge between the board and the executive management. the company secretary must have access to board members ( executive, nonexecutive, ceo and chairperson ). the board should consider assigning the tasks of applying and implementing the principles in the code to the company secretary. boards should ensure that the company secretary be competent to carry out his or her duties. ” ladies and gentlemen, your functions are already well defined and you have the duty to ensure that you comply with them. gone are the days when a company secretary was merely taking “ notes ” or “ minutes ”. the dynamics of the boardroom are constantly evolving. chairpersons and directors recognize such changes and

provide new innovative services, reduce costs and give consumers more choice. however this can only happen if standardised access to the payment account is provided. i would therefore call upon stakeholders such as banks, standard setting organisations and, third party providers to work together to ensure a single standard is developed for payment account access. the competition introduced by the revised payment service directive can also provide an opportunity for incumbent banks but only if they act urgently to implement instant payments. it is crucial that banks invest to upgrade their legacy batch systems to enable real - time processing and offer end - user solutions for instant payments. these solutions can provide them with a strong tool to face the upcoming competition. the recent experience with contactless payments shows that banks, in cooperation with other stakeholders, are well capable to roll out payment innovations that can quickly take off and improve end - users ’ payment experience. virtual currencies it is my view that future innovations in retail payments will be based on instants payments in combination with account access provided by the psd2. i would like stress this point especially in view of the ongoing public debate around the alleged innovation brought by private virtual currency schemes or tokens. while we have seen a substantial increase, albeit from low levels, in the value of some of the virtual currencies lately, we should not forget that their usage as a settlement asset is marginal 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches and the overall user acceptance as a means of payment is negligible. in fact, retail payment traffic in europe alone is orders of magnitude higher than the global transaction volume of virtual currencies. in view of the speculative market environment for virtual currencies and for other types of virtual financial assets, one should bear in mind that these are by definition virtual : they do not constitute a claim on an issuer and do not formally qualify as currency. their purchasing power fluctuates wildly and depends solely on the market activity of speculators. it remains to be seen whether these virtual currencies can be considered as a payment alternative for consumers – except in extreme case like in failed states - and to what extent they can compete with the solutions market players will be able to develop in the safer and more efficient european retail payments market. the ecb continues to monitor these developments, not only from a market infrastructure perspective, but also as regards monetary policy, financial stability, and prudential supervision. and while we continue to fully meet the increasing demand for safe and efficient banknotes we shall