ravi menon : enabling fintech for good opening remarks by mr ravi menon, managing director of the monetary authority of singapore, at the leaders'session at inclusive fintech forum, kigali, 21 june 2023. * * * his excellency paul kagame, president of the republic of rwanda, his excellency hakainde hichilema, president of the republic of zambia, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. i am delighted to be part of this remarkable session bringing africa and asia together on the theme of enabling fintech for good. there is much we can do together, and singapore is proud to be part of this effort. since coming here a couple of days ago, my colleagues and i have been struck by the energy and vitality of this place. technology is transforming the world of finance. fintech presents both opportunity and risk. we want to harness these opportunities while managing the risks. in singapore, when we began our fintech journey 8 years ago, we set four guiding principles for the use of fintech : to increase efficiency ; to manage risks better ; to create new opportunities ; and most important to improve people's lives. eight years later, these principles continue to guide us. as we walked our fintech journey, we learnt along the way. two critical enablers have proven decisive in getting us to where we are : first, building foundational digital infrastructure second, fostering connectivity and collaboration let me say a few quick words about each of them. first, foundational digital infrastructure – systems that allow different users, different solutions, and different devices to seamlessly interact with one another. just as physical infrastructure like roads and railways helped to connect and advance the industrial economy, we need digital infrastructures to enable a vibrant digital economy. what are these digital infrastructures? one, a digital identity, so that we can interact with one another digitally, with trust and confidence, knowing who is on the other side of the transaction. in singapore, we introduced singpass as a digital identity to facilitate secure, consent - based verification for residents to digitally access more than 700 different government services. 1 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches two, interoperable electronic payments. we need not only digital payment solutions but common payment rails or networks for these different payment solutions to be interoperable. in singapore, we built paynow, an instant payment service. residents can move money to one another's bank account in real - time at

a storehouse of information on a plethora of topics. we have proactively placed a large amount of information on our website, such as circulars, master circulars, publications and press releases, as also a data base on indian economy. the bank has started the process of digitization of records with suitable software solution with scanning, storing indexing and retrieval features. at the instance of the central information commission, reserve bank of india has formulated a disclosure policy under the right to information act, 2005, in respect of the information held by it. the policy, which contains an indicative negative list / classes of information which the reserve bank considers as exempt from disclosure under the provisions of the right to information act, 2005, has been hosted on the reserve bank of india website. we are probably the first public authority to declare upfront as to what information can be disclosed and what is exempt from disclosure. we believe that such clear enunciation would clear all doubts from the minds of information seekers, and help to bring down the number of requests and also minimize the use of the appellate mechanism. apart from placing the information, as required under section 4 ( 1 ) ( b ) of the act on our website, we are also placing information disclosed under the act, if it is of general interest, on our website in a disclosure log. the number of applications received by us has risen progressively year on year, from 796 in 2005 – 06 ( october – june ) to 5, 087 in ( 2010 – 11 ). our disclosure record has been good, with 78 percent of the requests being met in full and 5 percent in part. only 6 percent requests were declined fully and remaining 11 percent were disposed of in other manner. during the six years of implementation of the rti act in rbi, we received over 18, 000 requests. only about 16 % of the requestors went in for first appeal. the rbi top management and the central board of directors monitor the progress made by us in the implementation of the rti act through monthly, quarterly and annual reports submitted by the concerned division. having said this, it would be pertinent to stress that being the country ’ s central bank, rbi is the banker to government and banks, regulator and supervisor of the financial system, manager of currency operations, custodian of forex reserves etc., and is, therefore, privy to vital and sensitive information, which cannot be placed in the public domain due to its sensitivity and impact on