smartphone, which can benefit consumers both in cities and in remote areas. moreover, the ever - expanding universe of new financial services means there are a number of choices and solutions available to fulfill different needs, especially those currently underserved. ladies and gentlemen, as financial technology can help unlock massive potential of our people, it is now up to us, the leaders and policymakers, to play an important role of “ the catalysts, ” to pave way for greater adoption of financial technology. on this point, i believe there are at least four key areas that catalysts like us must act together : 3 / 5 first, we must encourage common standards of technologies or platforms to avoid market fragmentation. having common standards would improve competition and innovation, as they allow easy access for all players, especially small innovative players. a good example of the common standards is the standardized qr code for electronic payment here in thailand, where banks and non - banks can apply the common standard to their applications. the result of which was the remarkable speed of adoption of qr code for payment ; in less than one year since its launch, qr code payment is accepted by over 2 million merchants all over thailand. more importantly, financial institutions within the region have already taken advantage of the interoperability of the qr code by applying the common standard in their applications for cross - border transactions with their partners. we are certain there will be many similar partnerships in the future. second, we must establish basic and open digital financial infrastructure so that further innovation can emerge to serve a wider range of consumers. open infrastructure enables service providers to build value - added services on top at low cost. for instance, e - payment services were created based on our promptpay infrastructure, such as bill payment and request - to - pay features. these, in turn, have helped facilitate e - payments for merchants and consumers and improved the overall e - commerce business landscape. even charitable organizations are able to take advantage of the open - platform with e - donation. meanwhile, the adoption of electronic payment through a common infrastructure can further create the data essential for information - based lending or for banks to improve on their risk models. third, we must facilitate greater convergence of rules and regulations within our region to make sure that existing regulations do not impede advancement of financial connectivity. efforts are being made in this area. asean central banks are working on initiatives under the asean banking integration framework to make banking regulations more cohesive, aiming at achieving greater consistency

participants with the tools to hedge their bond position, as well as to manage liquidity more effectively. the private repo market will also provide an important link between the money market and the bond market, meaning that liquidity in the secondary bond market can be substantially improved once a well - functioning private repo market is in place. second, the bank of thailand will coordinate with the thailand securities depository to set up a " bond lending and collateral management unit " to activate the bond lending business. this again will help facilitate the private repo market and enhance overall market liquidity. the third is that the bank of thailand will begin integrating the depository system as well as the clearing and settlement system for all debt instruments with the tsd under a multi - year migration plan. this is aimed at enhancing market efficiency and reducing transaction costs in the debt market. the integrated system will also provide an important foundation for future regional linkages of the clearing and settlement system. fourth is the development of hedging instruments. with the current upward trend in domestic interest rates, hedging instruments particularly interest rate swaps will provide the bond market with additional instruments that will be useful in an environment of market volatilities. the interest rate swaps market can help diversify and reallocate risk among various groups of bondholders. the fifth focus is our plan to improve the functioning of primary dealers as market makers. this is to say that their obligations and privileges will be reviewed so that they will be in a strong position to perform their functions as market makers. and the sixth is the ongoing project to strengthen the regional bond market through the asian bond funds project. for the past years, development of the local and regional bond markets has been given an unprecedented emphasis by various regional fora. the most notable is the launching of abf1 project by eleven emeap central banks. that efforts is now being followed by the abf2 project. under abf2, the eleven regional central banks will invest a fraction of their reserves in the local currency denominated bonds issued by sovereign and quasi - sovereign entities in eight emeap markets, namely, china, hong kong, indonesia, korea, malaysia, philippines, singapore and thailand. the passively managed style of abf2 will help attract the interests of both domestic and international investors in the asian bond markets, as it would provide an attractive alternative for investors who seek innovative, low - cost and efficient bond products in the asian financial markets. furthermore