have gathered here for. seizing the opportunity, i will, however, mention a few, in my opinion, critical directions. the first one is undoubtedly taxes. if we want to reach a real breakthrough in the fight against income inequality, we will have to, or, to be more exact – we must immediately start implementing real changes in the taxation system. the second pillar is reforming the old - age pension system. and the third one – education. we have already submitted proposals on the restructuring of the first two systems – tax and pension – to the government, and have presented them to the public. i believe that some of you are already familiar with them. for others, let me briefly tell you that, in the view of the bank of lithuania, the changes to the tax system proposed by the government this summer, such as easing the tax burden for those with the lowest income, are the right actions in the right direction. however, alone, they will not be sufficient to fundamentally alter the present situation. that requires a more thorough and far - reaching tax reform. when designing it, we should focus on several elements. firstly – on reviewing workforce taxation, secondly – on reducing the variety 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches of income tax regimes, and thirdly – on searching for additional sources of revenue. in this regard, expansion of the property tax base could, and should, be considered. the data confirms such needs : budget revenue from income and property taxes in lithuania accounts for less than a fifth of total tax revenues. in the european union, this share stands at one - third on average. the general government revenue - to - gdp ratio in lithuania also lags significantly behind the eu average. this has an inevitable and, unfortunately, negative impact on the quality of public services. in other words, compared to western europe, not enough money is collected into the budget. this results in insufficient funds necessary for adequately funding public services and ensuring their high quality for all citizens of the country – in line with the needs of a developed society. now let me refer to the pension system. in our view, in its current form, it not only fails to address the issue of income inequality, but even makes it more acute. retirement pensions in our country over the last few years have increased at much slower pace than average wages, which has significantly deteriorated the financial situation of many pensioners. as of next year, indexation of pensions is to come into effect, meaning that pension payments will be

– the imf ’ s blueprint for fintech development, produced together with the world bank. being one of the jurisdictions to take on the fintech challenge early on, this shows that the overall direction we have chosen has put us on the right track. one example of our good practice is opening up the bank of lithuania ’ s payment infrastructure to non - banking entities. now they can directly, – without the middlemen – access the single euro payments area through our centrolink payment platform. today, out of the total 80 users of the centrolink, over three quarters are e - money and payment institutions. by streamlining licensing procedures, we have also shortened the time it takes for such entities to receive authorisation and begin their operations. in addition to this, we ’ ve introduced the concept of a specialized bank, which offers most of the mainstream financial services, but features a lower initial capital requirement. as a result, already 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches 3 specialized bank licences have been issued, with 4 applications under consideration. and, on top of that, we have initiated the creation of a legal framework for crowdfunding and peerto - peer lending. this helps avoid regulatory arbitrage and eliminates the obstacles to the much needed development of alternative financing sources. the results of our efforts speak for themselves : in 2016, we had 6 licenced e - money and payment institutions operating in lithuania ; today, that number has surpassed 80. and yet, despite these early results, we are constantly looking for new ways to adapt. that is a large reason why we actively engage with the novel financial market players. take, for instance, the newcomer programme. or our own regulatory sandbox, which enables innovative firms to test their business models under our guidance and supervision. all this interaction is a two - way street. we do it not only to help new participants, but also to help ourselves identify regulatory shortcomings. — this know - how is especially crucial in one particular area – managing risks that are stemming from fintech. the duality of potential benefits and risks, recognized in the bali fintech agenda, is also the underlying theme in our event today. in this regard, the bank of lithuania has brought the money laundering concerns to the forefront, substantially boosting human resources devoted to the issue. we have also started to look into the non - bank entities when conducting cyber security exercises on the financial services sector. and, when it comes to investor protection, we