exchange – which let me remind you has been the best performer of asia in 2017, but will also make it accessible and desirable to a host of investors across the world. to further add, the technological improvement would be a further boost for trading within and outside the country. i am sure that the partnership of pakistan stock exchange with china will bear fruits by developing competitive and profitable securities and derivative products. the local financial institutions in this consortium have an important role to play as well. with the thorough understanding of the domestic markets and wellpoised to assist their foreign counterparts, the consortium would be instrumental in raising productive capital from both within and outside pakistan. this capital would play a critical role for the corporate sector at a time when the chinapakistan economic corridor is in full swing. this is just the tip of the iceberg, ladies and gentlemen. with proper planning and execution, such future collaborations could be game turners for all the stakeholders. not only would this help raising the economic growth of the country, but will also unlock the business - to - business and person - to - person barriers, and may be a good avenue to learn from each other in various fields such as banking, engineering, transportation, telecommunication, energy, and many more. to sum up, the possibilities are limitless. the key, ladies and gentlemen, would be to have an open mind and learn from the experiences of such co - ordinations in other parts of the world like the trans - african highway network, pan - american and pan - european corridors. our year on year lsm growth in nov 2016 is 8. 1 % compared with 4. 5 % in nov 2015. private sector credit expanded by rs. 376 billion and is broad based in state bank of pakistan july - dec fy 17 compared with rs 283 billion in corresponding period 2016. such good news will contribute to psx and the investors sentiments. in the end, i would like to thank you all for your time, and congratulate you for making this step a success. god bless!

, innovative and always eager banking and telecom industry in the country. i would like to share some numbers that show the level of take - up of branchless banking services in the country. for example : • currently, eight branchless banking deployments are live in the market and four more are yet to go live this year. • up to december 2013, providers ’ combined network has reached to almost 125, 000 agents spread across all over pakistan. • total number of branchless banking transactions has shown continuous growth in each successive quarter. 54 million transactions worth rs. 234 billion were performed during the quarter ended december 2013. bis central bankers ’ speeches • currently 3. 5 million customers hold branchless banking accounts ( also known as m - wallets ) to avail host of services including fund transfer, utility bill payment, domestic remittance, mobile top ups, loan repayment, and saving account features. • branchless banking has played a pivotal role in providing efficient financially inclusive government to person ( g2p ) payments to welfare beneficiaries of benazir income support program ( bisp ), watan card and bayt - ul - mall. ladies & gentlemen, while we have achieved initial success through accumulating a critical mass of transactions and customers ’ acquisition in branchless banking, we are by no means complacent. we are focusing our energies to identify gaps and bring solutions to address those gaps. sbp is strengthening its regulatory oversight through measures such as regular diagnostic and inspections, compliance forum, and agent monitoring system. sbp has also formed the national branchless banking consultative group which draws representation from branchless banking industry players including banks, mobile operators, and technology service providers. this group is actively working on different protocols including agent code of conduct, agent sharing models, interoperability schemes, consumer protection framework etc. ladies & gentlemen, it is a matter of great comfort and satisfaction for banking and telecom companies that their respective regulators i. e. sbp and pta share the vision and are working in close collaboration to provide an enabling regulatory environment for development of mobile / branchless banking services. keeping in view the importance of interoperability for promotion of branchless / mobile banking, sbp and pta are working closely in developing a regulatory framework for third party service provider ( tpsp ). eventually, mobile financial services would become interoperable once tpsp regulatory framework is issued. going forward, much is still needed to be done. sbp