to promote efficiency, innovation and competition through our operation of rtgs and chaps. we have therefore recently widened the access criteria for rtgs and chaps to enable non - bank psps to join. key to this was working closely with the fca, hm treasury and the psr to develop a supervisory regime that would allow non - bank psps to access settlement in rtgs and participation in the chaps payment system without increased risks. in april 2018 transferwise was the first non - bank psp to join rtgs and was followed by ipagoo who in august 2018 was i. e. those which the bank ’ s analysis identified as being systemically important to the chaps system in terms of the total value of payments they send and receive. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / publications / pages / speeches / default. aspx the first non - bank psp to join chaps directly. direct access allows non - bank psps to reduce their operational dependence on the banks they are trying to compete with. over the longer term, this should also create a more diverse payments sector with fewer single points of failure. reducing the cost of access. we continue to seek to avoid the costs of direct access being prohibitive to prospective and existing participants. we have enabled third - party aggregators to provide technical connectivity to rtgs for smaller chaps direct participants, reducing the upfront costs of direct access without reducing overall resilience. the rtgs renewal programme will further reduce the barriers to direct access. its technical architecture will be designed to support several hundred direct participants in chaps ; allowing for a significant increase from the current 33. we also intend to introduce automated testing to streamline the joining process. we will build simulators to help new joiners better familiarise themselves with chaps and provide broader rtgs functionality before going live. the renewed rtgs will also feature enhanced functionality ( e. g. enhanced liquidity management and the capability to extend opening hours ), facilitating innovation by both established participants and new joiners. this should, in time, ultimately lead to a situation where it is simple and cost effective for any eligible participant to become a direct participant in chaps. improved governance in bringing chaps in - house it has been important to develop a strong and robust governance framework and retain the strong ‘ user voice ’ that chaps co facilitated. at the heart of this was the establishment of the rtgs / cha

16, 000 government employees are stationed in the rural locations of solomon islands. the majority of them are teachers, nurses and police officers. some of these people travel in high seas, walk or paddle long distances to get access to their fortnightly pay. some even regularly travel to honiara and join the queues at the treasury or at the commercial bank tellers to collect their house rentals and other dues. bis central bankers ’ speeches with the recent successful introduction of mobile financial services by the commercial banks and strong up - take by the public, and delivery of person to person ( p2p ) type transactions using mobile phones and efptos machines, the next question is : is there a business case for government to people ( g2p ) type transactions in solomon islands? we will be able to hear answers to this question during the presentation this morning. i am sure that the study has uncovered interesting findings and i encourage us to make use of these findings. i hope this will generate lively discussions and new ideas around improving mobile and branchless banking transactions and more importantly providing people in remote rural areas opportunities to access their bank accounts in a convenient and cost effective manner. i am confident that stakeholders will find the study findings useful and will be able to use the results and analysis in their own respective areas of work. i encourage you to provide your valuable feedback and comments to us on the g2p report so that we can look at various options to improve financial services not only to the core g2p recipients but to the general public as well. before i take my seat, let me thank the following in making it possible to complete this study and making it available : 1. the australian government, especially the department of foreign affairs & trade ( dfat ), for the funding assistance thru the un pacific islands financial inclusion program ( pfip ). 2. the pfip for their role in providing guidance and advice and support to the study. 3. the m / s pi strategy consulting firm from bangladesh, the technical service provider for undertaking and completing the g2p study. 4. the national financial inclusion unit of cbsi, members of the national financial inclusion task force, and the field enumerators, for their hard work which made the g2p study possible and successfully completed. finally let me thank all of you invited stakeholders who are here to attend this presentation this morning. thank you. bis central bankers ’ speeches