muhammad bin ibrahim : banknotes exhibition in malaysia opening remarks by mr muhammad bin ibrahim, governor of the central bank of malaysia ( bank negara malaysia ), at the launching of “ works on paper : art inside the wallet ”, kuala lumpur, 4 august 2016. * * * if you consider yourself to be a typical person, chances are you would never take the trouble to look at your banknotes closely unless you are in a situation where your banknote are rejected by the cash deposit machine. a typical response in a situation like this is to check your money more thoroughly to see if it is a genuine, fit and useable. otherwise, the interest of typical person in banknotes does not go beyond their wallet. this attitude towards banknotes is not surprising and even understandable, but i hope this exhibition of world banknotes at bank negara museum and art gallery today will spur some interest among members of the public on the intricacies of banknotes of our country and the world over. today we are presenting, what we thought, the 30 most innovative banknotes from around the world, printed in the past two centuries, to show why there is more to banknotes than meets the eyes. banknotes of any nations are unique and represent the identity of the issuing country - and not surprisingly, to most people banknotes are only second to the national flag as the most identifiable and recognisable icon of the country. which is why central banks and monetary authorities spend considerable resources and efforts in designing their banknotes not only, to be as aesthetically pleasing and attractive as possible, but more importantly, to appropriately portray the unique identity of their respective countries. throughout history, banknotes incorporated significant natural and cultural aspects of the country, encompassing nature, history, society, economy and technology. bank negara first issued currency in 1967. and since then, uniquely, our banknotes have always featured the first yang di - pertuan agong, tuanku abdul rahman ibni almarhum tuanku muhammad on the obverse to signify the stability and reflect the unity of our country under the system of constitutional monarchy. on the reverse, however, our banknotes have had different icons over the last five decades, with the most recent banknotes series aptly themed “ uniquely malaysia ”, due to the icons that can be found exclusively or largely in malaysia. it has been a practice for most countries to change banknotes icons from time to time, and to include new theme

fund greater future pension expenditures. this last would require both an increase in public saving ( reducing budget deficits and raising the share of capital expenditure ) and an expansion of the private pillar. some of these options have the normative appeal that the current workforce shares part of the burden with future taxpayers. in particular, policies to raise the age at retirement and increase current savings seem preferable, at least for italy, given that in the future people will not only live longer but will also be active and healthy longer. 7 moreover, such policies are likely to increase potential gdp and this will help to alleviate the financial consequences of ageing. morcaldo ( 2007 ). the often overlooked fact that the returns achieved in a funded system depend on demographic developments has been highlighted among others by mirrlees ( 1997 ) and the pension commission ( 2004 ). see also visco ( 2002 ). unfortunately, this does not mean that health - related expenditures will be less burdensome. on one hand, scientific and technological progress in the medical field will probably make more disease curable and lead to higher overall expenditures. on the other hand, a large part of medical expenditures is in any case incurred in the very last years of one ’ s life. all in all, there is a growing consensus among experts and policy - makers that lengthening the average working life and increasing pre - funding are essential to any credible strategy to meet the challenges of ageing. to increase the effective age of retirement, it is important to reduce the disincentives to work embedded in social security rules. payg systems are often not neutral with respect to the retirement decision. indeed, in many social security systems workers ’ pension wealth ( i. e. the discounted value of future pension payments ) decreases with age at retirement, generally because of the weak linkage of benefits to lifetime contributions. the ndc system introduced in italy in 1995 should offset this distortion, as benefits depend on past contributions and on expected longevity at retirement. however, the new system is being phased - in very slowly. other potential interventions relate to the labour market, for example offering broader training opportunities to older employees, increasing flexibility in age - earnings profiles and improving on employment arrangements. if we enlarge our framework to account for uncertainty and move beyond the distinction between funded and unfunded pension schemes, a second distinction comes to the fore, namely that between defined contribution ( dc ) and defined benefit ( db ) systems. the two distinctions are independent of one