the back, let us not get complacent. rather, let us be inspired to further push the boundaries and produce more tangible results in our countries and across the region. financial inclusion is about thinking outside the box, because what is required is beyond the norm. what is required is innovative thinking. i therefore invite us to put on our collective thinking caps in this regard. allow me to suggest a few issues for possible deliberation over the next two days. financial inclusion usage the financial inclusion monitoring framework, according to international standards, looks at access, usage and quality indicators. financial access points are just the building blocks. what is important is getting our people to understand and use these financial products and services. for example, even though remitting funds through mobile phones is perhaps the cheapest of the channels, we still see other alternative expensive mediums being used. we ask the question, why is this so? as a working group, we need to see the translation to active usage of all these positive developments. it is promising to note that we are beginning to gain ground on the financial access points being now visible in our countries, but this must simultaneously be accompanied by active usage. this will provide economies of scale for the provider and, therefore, the sustainability of a particular product or service. bis central bankers ’ speeches diagnostic exercises – surveys during the next two days, i think it would be timely if we can deliberate on why there is low uptake for certain financial products and services, for instance mobile financial services. i know answers to some of these questions can only be determined by asking the very people on the ground, the intended customers. to this end we need to work towards a national demand survey in our respective countries. piwg may also explore the idea of a progress out of poverty index ( ppi ). the index measures, assesses and tracks the poverty level over time and is a tool that is statistically sound, yet simple in its implementation. remittances and msmes remittances are another important area for us. what can be done to improve remittance flows, as they can play a pivotal role in advancing financial inclusion in our countries? similarly the encouragement of micro, small and medium enterprises is another crucial area in the financial inclusion sphere. what do we need to do to further develop and grow these sectors in our economy? developments in fiji ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to give you a quick update on developments in fiji after our last

household indebtedness and of house price rises on the sustainability of growth. the measures aimed at raising the supply of housing and its accessibility will not be sufficiently effective if they do not include a reorganisation of the land market, which remains one of the main unresolved issues facing the spanish economy. also, a more neutral tax treatment of house ownership and further measures to foster rental could improve the working of this market. there are also implications for the behaviour of financial intermediaries and i will look at these now as i review the main recent developments in the spanish financial system. the financial system the international financial system benefited in 2004 from the favourable trends in train since 2003 and still apparent in the early months of 2005. very low long - term interest rates, stable interest rate spreads both in emerging countries and in the corporate sector, the performance of the main stock market indices, low levels of volatility and ample liquidity all made for a relatively easy scenario that contrasted with the difficulties experienced at the beginning of the decade. despite this favourable environment, the financial situation is complicated by certain circumstances that cannot be ignored. first, financing activities are becoming increasingly complex in terms of both demand and management. low interest rates have thus increased the appetite for risk and spurred the development of new financial products, such as credit derivatives, and of new intermediaries, such as hedge funds. these new possibilities mean that institutions have had to become much more sophisticated risk managers because of the singular features of these financial products and intermediaries, particularly their complexity and opacity. if we factor in the natural doubts as to the sustainability of this scenario ( not so much as to whether it will continue but as to how benign it will be ), it becomes evident that the satisfactory behaviour of the markets and financial intermediaries should not be allowed to lead to complacency, but should be used to strengthen the soundness of institutions as a precaution against possible changes in the favourable central scenarios. spanish deposit institutions have not been unaffected by these developments. in fact, to the favourable factors listed above should be added, in the case of spain, a highly favourable macroeconomic scenario and a growth differential with the core european countries in both output and employment. this, along with the good starting position of our institutions in terms of efficiency and competitiveness, enabled the soundness and international leadership of our financial system to be strengthened. our institutions have thus been able to meet the demand for more and increasingly complex banking products