taken additional lead roles in advocating financial inclusion initiatives in their respective countries ; building towards an inclusive financial system that recognises and makes available different types of financial services and products that are affordable, accessible and appropriate for all citizens. bis central bankers ’ speeches as a group we learn from each other ’ s experiences, but we also tailor our programs and initiatives to suit our own unique country situations. the environment in which we operate constantly evolves and we need to embrace the innovations in technology to facilitate the provisions of an inclusive financial system. what ’ s next for piwg? fellow colleagues, let us take a moment to reflect on the vision and mission of our working group. our vision is that “ financial services are widely accessed by all pacific islanders ”. to get there we have a mission statement that urges us “ to create conditions that lead to the financial empowerment of pacific islanders in the short to medium term ”. as a region we have established and achieved a number of outcomes and we must take pride in our achievements to date. in the last five years, some of us took bold steps and established specific departments or units within our central banks to drive financial inclusion related matters. we have set policies and guidelines to enable other stakeholders in our countries to contribute and be a part of the financial inclusion cause. some of us have set up a national financial inclusion taskforce to guide and spearhead the development work and initiatives in this area. with this in mind it was pleasing to note, at last year ’ s afi global policy forum in malaysia, that the bank of papua new guinea and central bank of samoa formally pledged their commitments under the maya declaration. they thus joined the reserve bank of vanuatu, central bank of solomon islands and reserve bank of fiji, who had made their commitments earlier. i am hopeful that our friends from the banco central de timor - leste and national reserve bank of tonga will also make commitments in due course. colleagues, over the last few years we have witnessed the introduction of innovative products and services in our countries such as mobile financial services and micro insurance, as well as the opening up of a lot more bank accounts. as a group we have undertaken a comprehensive data project where we have our very own piwg core plus indicators. we are all working on providing an enabling regulatory framework to support innovation in these areas. the introduction of financial literacy and education programmes for school children and adults alike has also been at the forefront of our work. however, whilst we may want to give ourselves a pat on

meeting in september, 2013. i understand we have a session for country updates later today, so i will keep this brief. in the last two quarters, we have been able to accomplish a number of initiatives. the national financial literacy strategy for fiji has been endorsed by the government for implementation ; we hosted the inaugural national microfinance awards during the pacific microfinance week, which a number of you witnessed first - hand ; and we finalised the consumer protection pre - disclosure ( cppd ) template, which will be implemented by our licensed financial institutions in the coming quarter. colleagues, it gives me immense pride and joy to inform all of you that on the 28th february 2014, we successfully achieved our target of reaching 150, 000 unbanked fijians. this is a target we had initially set in november 2009 following our first stakeholder workshop and one which we made a part of our maya declaration in cancun in 2011. this goal would not have been achieved without the collaborative effort of all the stakeholders in fiji and we are sincerely grateful to them. while we have had some success, this does not in any way mean that the work has finished. in fact, this is only the first step in the longer journey that we committed to undertake. this is a great platform from which we will chart the next phase of development for financial inclusion in fiji. i would therefore like to announce that the bank, together with the national financial inclusion taskforce, is taking stock of all the financial inclusion initiatives undertaken in the country to date and we will use this information over the coming nine months to develop a new financial inclusion strategy for fiji that will run from 2015 to 2020. concluding remarks in closing, i thank you again for making it to denarau this week. i urge you to keep your focus on the goals you have set out to achieve. this meeting provides a great platform to take stock, share experiences, discuss issues concerning the region and challenges encountered, and identify opportunities to pursue to take our goals to another level. in a few days we will also be welcoming delegates from different parts of the world for the afi strategy peer learning working group meeting. let our small pacific countries be a good financial inclusion example of firm collaboration and achievement. last year when the bis central bankers ’ speeches reserve bank of fiji was awarded the inaugural maya declaration award, i could see the immense pride among all pacific member countries present and such achievements bring us closer together as a region. thank you for your continuous support and we