. why? to promote a wider use of these bonds, and once there is a greater hunger for them, we can launch longer - term issues and thus extend maturity terms and interest rates, and make our system more trustworthy. we said we need a financial system in pesos, with an efficient lender of last resort. in a word, we have for the first time a retaining net that was non - existent when our financial system was in trouble. therefore, we must have a policy of optimum cash requirements to optimize liquidity. at the beginning of my presentation, i said we should encourage the financial system ’ s raw material, that is, the banks and banking, both in terms of services, which i shall explain right away, and in terms of deposits. we should note that, although the money in circulation in the hands of the general public has increased from 4. 2 to 6. 5 of the gdp, banking services are still not widely used. there is 0. 5 account per inhabitant, while in other countries there are 2. 7 accounts. and this has to do with strengthening institutions, with restoring their credibility, and above all with conferring them more transparency. we must also work, obviously according to fiscal needs, to lift a tax that today is clearly distortive, namely, the tax on bank debits and credits. the blue line shows the 0. 2 % yield of time deposits. this drop in certificates of deposit is undoubtedly accounted for by the tax burden. here we had a negative yield, as shown by the dark blue line, or a very small yield. and the orange line indicates the implicit income tax rate as a result of a tax on bank debits and credits. at present, the income tax thus obtained accounts for 75 %. i am fully aware of the fact that fiscal needs should be our paramount concern, but if we want more savings we must remove dispersions. and this has to be done gradually and jointly with the executive power. if our intention is to have a wider use of banking services, we cannot expect a magic solution. we must remove the tax on bank debits and credits and we must urgently improve transparency. we should provide more and better information, that is, there should be no implicit costs, no productive interest rates, no small print statements deceiving us at the time of requesting a loan, even the shortest - term loans. as to credit cards, we cannot

what has happened with the so - called lebacs. since january 2003 rates have been dropping, while maturity terms have increased. on average, these bills mature approximately in 300 days, having started at less than 100 days. our intention is to gradually extend maturity terms, so that bill auctions may not only show a drop in interest rates. and you have surely been able to assess the outcomes of last week ’ s first auction under the new authorities. we plan to continue on this path with every auction called by the central bank, that is, we do not want to use the lebacs as an absorption instrument but basically as a reference rate. another of our major goals will be to set what we know as a short - term reference rate. in may this year, owing to tax due dates, especially income tax, many companies had to borrow money from the interbanking market, which led to a significant cash demand. following this, the central bank set a rate for swaps. as you know, swap operations consist in the central bank buying and buying back bonds to borrow or lend money. as way of example, today the central bank has set the so - called passive swaps corridor whereby the central bank borrows money from financial institutions at a 2. 5 % annual rate. it has also set an active swaps corridor with a 3. 5 % cap whereby the central bank lends money to these institutions. market rates have gradually converged toward this corridor. our intention is to use this economic policy tool as a way of converging toward and not just setting this market reference rate. at present, the pubic sector ’ s deposits in the banco de la nacion and other public banks amount to 30 billion pesos. of the 100 billion pesos deposited in the financial system, a third corresponds to the public sector. since our very first week in office, our board has attempted to make public banks become more active in the swaps market, and in particular that we may reduce the gap in this corridor, today between 3. 5 % and 2. 5 %. during last week, we have seen the banco nacion operate with a narrower corridor, lending money at a 2. 8 % annual rate. this shows that setting a reference rate and working jointly with the other public banks is already yielding fruit. i would now like to go back in history a bit to avoid tags. during the 80s argentina ’ s monetary policy was hyperexpansive. the central