remain vigilant of these developments in this unchartered area of cyberspace. consistent with our mandate of ensuring the stability, safety, and efficiency of the country ’ s financial system, the bangko sentral will continue to adopt a comprehensive, agile, risk - based, and engaging approach toward cybersecurity. this approach cuts across three key areas : first, our regulatory policy framework ; second, proactive monitoring through our surveillance capabilities ; and finally, promoting resilience through supervisory and oversight activities. since 2013, the bsp has issued several regulations to address cyber - related risks for our supervised financial institutions. these regulations deal on various facets of technology such as social media risk management, business continuity management, multi - factor authentication, cybersecurity, electronic payments and financial services, virtual assets, and open finance. we recently released advisories on control measures against cyber fraud and attacks on retail electronic payments and financial services, and security controls for application programming interface. likewise, we amended our regulations to enhance provisions on fraud management and technology outsourcing. at this point, allow me to share some major industry - wide initiatives to strengthen the industry ’ s cyber defenses and overall resilience. • first, the bsp is developing the financial services cyber resilience plan that will serve as the primary framework covering strategies and plans to strengthen cyber resilience in the financial services industry. this is part of bsp ’ s role as the lead in the banking sector computer emergency response team under the department of information and communications technology. • second, we are implementing the advanced suptech engine for risk - based compliance, or what we call asterisc *, which is a unified regtech and suptech solution that will streamline and automate regulatory supervision, reporting, and compliance assessment of cybersecurity risk management for our supervised institutions. • third, we engage with the banking industry through the bankers association of the philippines cyber incident database or bapcid. bapcid is a web - based portal and an industry cyberthreat and best practices sharing platform where participants can report incidents and threats anonymously, and receive threat intelligence feeds and threat advisories from the bsp. • lastly, we are currently coordinating with relevant government agencies and industry associations for a joint consumer protection campaign to amplify our messages and raise overall cyber awareness in the country. in closing, as we explore the opportunities offered by the metaverse, we must remain vi

we ’ ve learned our lessons from the asian financial crisis. as of end - 2020, the philippine banking system ( pbs ) has exhibited sustained growth in assets, adequate liquidity buffers, strong capital position, and ample loan loss reserves. the assets of the banking system managed to grow from 2019 by 6. 1 percent to p19. 4 trillion as of end - 2020. the growth was mainly driven by higher deposits, which rose by 8. 9 percent in 2020. the liquidity coverage ratio ( lcr ) of universal and commercial banks as of end - november 2020 was comfortably high at 201. 0 percent, twice the regulatory minimum of 100. 0 percent. similarly, the system ’ s net stable funding ratio ( nsfr ) indicates its ability to provide stable funding in the medium term. as of end - september 2020, the capital adequacy ratio of universal and commercial banks was at 16. 8 percent on a solo basis, and 17. 2 percent on a consolidated basis. this is much higher than the bsp ’ s 10 percent standard and the bank for international settlement ’ s 8 percent standard. on the other hand, credit growth of universal and commercial banks decelerated by 2. 4 percent year - on - year as of january 2021 as banks tightened their overall credit standards for both loans to enterprises and households. non - performing loans and non - performing assets ratios rose to 3. 6 percent and 2. 6 percent, respectively, in december 2020. however, these ratios remain manageable and are much lower than the double - digit levels recorded during the asian financial crisis. while lower consumer spending and business activities continue to dampen bank lending growth, the government is taking measures to propel economic recovery in the country. this may be one of the basis for the banks ’ projections of increases in their loan portfolios by 10. 0 percent to 15. 0 percent over the next two years, these projections are based on the latest bsp ’ s banking sector outlook survey. meanwhile, the enactment of the financial institutions strategic transfer act will aid in the 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches industry ’ s management of non - performing loans. in brief, the country is poised for a strong recovery, supported by years of longstanding structural reforms, as well as new measures that are being put in place to prepare for a postpandemic economy – one that is better, greener, more inclusive, and more technology - based. challenge to toap new leadership ladies