a level about 2 percentage points below its average since 1990. far - forward rates in other advanced economies have also declined over the past decade and are currently at or near historic lows. 10 to some extent, low forward rates may reflect a persistent decline in expected future real rates of interest or in the real term premium. chairman bernanke has suggested that an excess of ex ante global saving relative to global investment has held down real interest rates around the world. 11 some of the factors behind this excess of saving over investment include the surge in revenues of oil and commodity exporters, a retreat in asian investment demand from the boom that preceded the late 1990s, and a reduction in fiscal deficits in some latin american countries. but these low bond yields also have a nominal aspect. the declines in inflation rates, in the volatility of inflation, and in long - term inflation expectations all point to a reduction in the compensation required by investors for the effects of future inflation on the returns to holding long - term bonds. this development is particularly remarkable in many emerging - market countries, in which longer - dated fixed - coupon bonds issued in domestic currencies had ceased to exist during the inflationary 1970s and 1980s. the recent lengthening of maturities of domestic - currency debt has, in many cases, not only extended the yield curve but – and this is one of the key results of the taming of inflation – effectively created a domestic - currency yield curve that previously did not exist. since 2000, ten - year nominal fixed - coupon bonds in the domestic currency have been introduced in brazil, chile, colombia, indonesia, mexico, and russia. korea and thailand introduced ten - year fixedcoupon bonds in their respective currencies in the 1990s. last year the government of mexico issued a thirty - year fixed - coupon bond in pesos for the first time. the proportion of domestic - currency debt in mexico maturing within one year was nearly 90 percent in 2002 and is now less than 75 percent. 12 the korean government continues to increase the proportion of its domestic - currency debt in longer maturities, with the one - year - and - under segment falling from roughly one - half in 1999 to less than one - fifth by the end of last year. moreover, maturity extension is not limited to emerging - market countries. france and the united kingdom, for example, issued fifty - year bonds in 2005. besides the fact that yield curves have been extended in many countries,

information security a priority for supervisors. although we have always reviewed information security as part of the supervisory process, the new law requires us to set consistent expectations for all institutions. attaining the appropriate balance in assessing technology operations within the supervisory process is not a simple matter, however. for example, over the last year, the number of banks supervised by the federal reserve that are offering banking services to their customers over the internet has more than doubled. as supervisors, we recognize that this kind of sudden change can lead to risks. we are developing training for our examiners on how to review internet banking operations, and maintaining a sufficiently up - to - date knowledge base will be a constant challenge for supervisors. however, we need to avoid the temptation to view electronic banking and other technology related operations as a new business line or risk area for which we need to develop a whole new supervisory or riskmanagement framework. and to date, these operations remain a relatively small part of most banks ’ operations, and we have not seen them generating higher levels of supervisory concerns. despite our more integrated view, it is important to recognize that supervisors cannot be responsible for ensuring that the technology employed by financial institutions always works exactly as expected. in fact, there are many technology related risks and pitfalls that are rightfully the concern of a financial institution ’ s shareholders, but not necessarily of its supervisors. i do not see bank supervisors hiring legions of network engineers to advise banks on which firewall or encryption technology to use. even if we felt that a detail - oriented technical approach was warranted, our public - sector resources simply could not support it. moreover, it is not clear that this type of approach would be consistent with our increased supervisory focus on banks ’ risk - management processes and control infrastructure rather than on conducting detailed technical reviews. in fact, most of the technology related issues we have encountered as supervisors, such as problems integrating disparate systems that invariably arise in bank mergers, are not the result of inadequate technology, but of inadequate planning or project management. the federal reserve has reviewed more than a dozen bank holding company applications over the last year or so that have involved internet ventures. we have found that when supervisory issues were identified, they generally involved managerial or financial concerns rather than concerns about the viability, reliability, or security of the technology. what this suggests to me is that the core risks and core competencies of banking and financial services will change only gradually while banks find new ways of reaching customers through new technology. the