financial stability and minimise the additional regulatory work as a result of harmonisation. this standard will help put credit institutions ’ capital base on a sound and sustainable footing and thus instil further confidence in the banking sector. this latter point, especially, should be of particular interest to credit institutions. but let me make one thing perfectly clear : we know full well that regulation is always a burden. and that is why institutions are also within their rights to call for a stop. 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches the good news isn ’ t new at all : the end is in sight. that means that the banking representatives here this evening will very soon have planning certainty for the remainder of the regulatory agenda. and the supervisors among us should also turn our attention to new developments. in the basel committee on banking supervision, we have already started looking to new vistas – amongst other initiatives, we have been evaluating the efficiency of standards and taking a look at digital risks. but let me say one more thing about basel iii : in this debate, it is important to have a clear view of the facts. the basel iii monitoring exercises and quantitative impact studies have given us a robust and granular overview. and judging by the facts we now have, i must concede that the figures thrown around in the debate surrounding basel iii and the demands which these numbers were used to justify did take me aback at times. you see, our impact studies found the increase in capital requirements to be measured, on average. the areas where requirements have risen show just how risk - sensitive the reforms are : we are seeing increases in the capital required in areas which are more at risk – equity interests, for instance. and at the same time, there are credit institutions which take on less risk, so naturally their capital requirements will be lower going forward. so in my view, everything suggests that seamless implementation of basel iii is the way forward – besides the global pledge given by bundesbank president jens weidmann, let ’ s not forget our duty to preserve financial stability. european implementation of the basel regime represents an opportunity to take factors unique to europe and germany on board. this is something for european and german legislators to decide. the european commission and the german federal government give bafin and the bundesbank an opportunity to inform their thinking, and we encourage them to stick to the standards. i am a fervent supporter of basel - compliant and risk - sensitive implementation of the reform package finalising basel iii.

the eve of reforms in 1991. by 2005, despite the reforms, the differential continues to be similar. in the case of credit accounts, the situation has deteriorated for rural households while showing significant improvement in the urban areas ( table 3 ), corroborating the very significant increase in retail credit. total deposits, as per cent of gdp, increased from 32. 2 in 1991 to 47. 1 in 2005 in rural areas and from 37. 3 to 61. 2 in urban areas. similarly, credit extended, as per cent of gdp, increased from 17. 3 to 22. 3 in rural and from 24. 8 to 45. 0 in urban areas ( table 4 ). in terms of banking penetration, the number of deposit and credit accounts of scheduled commercial banks as per cent of adult population are significantly lower in the rural areas as compared with the urban areas ( table 5 ). even in terms of financial widening, the scope for improvement remains. in terms of regional dis - aggregation since 1991, population per bank office has increased in rural areas from 13, 462 in 1991 to 16, 650 in 2005 and, as expected, declined in the urban areas from 14, 484 to 13, 619 over the period. three regions, north - eastern, east and central have higher population per office than the all - india average and it has increased significantly in the rural areas in 2005 over 1991 ( table 6 ). consequently, compared to an all - india average of 29. 9 savings accounts per 100 persons in 1991, virtually all of the states in the eastern and north - eastern regions and several pockets in the central region had figures lower than this average. in the rural areas, northern and southern region are above the all - india average while in the urban areas, northern and western region dominate. in terms of number of credit accounts per 100 persons, the southern states, both in rural and urban areas perform above the all - india average. thus, the apparent implication emerging from the above data reveals that the rural areas are not being served adequately by banks. this suggests that banks need to make efforts to mobilise resources from the rural sector, where as discussed earlier, scope for increase in business is emerging. further, if the banks are to balance their overall deposit mobilisation and credit extension, as generally robust banking practice would imply, then they would need to devise imaginative ways to mop up the resources, particularly in rural areas. v. rural economy - growth,