been evident in the economy. being a very open economy has meant that ireland is very much affected by international competitive forces. the eu internal market and the wide range of measures taken to implement it are a strong influence. at home, the powers of the competition authority have been strengthened and it has been quite active and effective in pursuing its agenda. nonetheless, there is scope for considerable progress. there are a number of areas, common to ireland and a large number of other european countries, where such progress could be made. the national competitiveness council has drawn attention to our very high utilities ’ prices in its reports. because of their structure and characteristics, utilities sectors are highly concentrated, and their operations must be subject to special competition and regulatory arrangements. we also have a long way to go in introducing more competition to the services area generally. in its assessment of ireland ’ s progress with the eu ’ s broad economic policy guidelines, the eu commission has drawn attention to the need to foster competition in professional services, retail distribution and insurance. there still are significant barriers to entry in many professional services in particular, and, as a consequence, prices here are very high by international standards. fostering entrepreneurship a dynamic economy requires an environment that is supportive of entrepreneurship. there are a number of aspects to this. at one level, the administrative burden of establishing and running a business should be kept to a minimum ; “ red tape ” should be eliminated where possible. where necessary, public sector efficiency should be improved. educational policies should be supportive of entrepreneurship, and there may be a need to improve access to finance. ireland would seem to score well in this area. although there is, no doubt, always room for improvement, the oecd has confirmed that the regulatory burden on business in ireland is low. there is also the fact that our business taxes are low by international standards. the expansion of the economy, new business start - ups and employment growth are indicative of our positive performance in this area. promoting employment and greater social cohesion the eu ecofin council last year emphasised the importance of a number of labour market reforms. these highlighted the need for greater flexibility of labour markets, to adapt employment protection where necessary to improve employability, and to adapt tax and benefit systems to improve work incentives. it was recognised that employment was the best way to ensure social inclusion. wage flexibility and adequate infrastructure were seen as desirable for coping with regional differences, and the social partners were urged to balance the interests of both insiders -

are segmented, requiring different and more specialized actors in some segments. dtms can be community based or nationwide with different core capital requirements of ksh. 30 million and ksh. 60 million, respectively. ii. agency banking effective 2nd january 2012, dtms were allowed to appoint third parties ( agents ) to offer specified dtm services on their behalf. this followed the successful rollout of agent banking by banks effective may 2010. so far eleven ( 11 ) banks have been granted approval to roll out their agency networks. eight ( 8 ) of these banks have appointed 11, 176 agents, which bis central bankers ’ speeches had executed over 18. 6 million transactions valued at over ksh. 93. 1 billion over the two year period to may 2012. iii. mobile phone financial services there has been tremendous growth in mobile phone financial services in the country. consequently, a number of institutions have initiated various innovations and new products to conveniently serve their customers and reduce the long queues that were previously experienced in banking halls. mobile phone money transfer services have been a phenomenal success and have put the country at the global centre stage of financial inclusion and innovation. in a country like ours with remote corners not served by financial institutions, mobile financial services has provided the answer. more importantly, our banks have easily integrated into their financial services with these technological platforms. the up - scaled level is now to use mobile phones to send money to savings accounts and credit provision through the same channels. this is already taking place with m - kesho type of products in the market. iv. credit information sharing the credit information sharing ( cis ) mechanism for banking institutions has successfully taken root with mandatory sharing of negative information on a monthly basis. all the 43 licensed commercial banks in kenya and institutions under the deposit protection fund board have been submitting negative credit information to the licensed credit reference bureaus ( crbs ) within the required timeframes. the banking act and the central bank of kenya act have now been amended to allow institutions licensed under both the banking act and the microfinance act to share both positive and negative credit information of their customers. this will go a long way in enriching the crbs database for the benefit of the entire banking sector and create objectivity in reporting. credit information sharing allows the market to build information capital for the financial sector in kenya. this will help build credit histories of borrowers and support a change of collateral technology in use currently. development of information capital will remove information as