private sector established the digital public infrastructure that enabled broad adoption. in the united states, it's a different story, and the payments landscape is unique. with over 9, 000 depository institutions and different authorities than other countries, the federal reserve determined that it needed to build a fast payment system accessible to all depository institutions to achieve our policy goals. at the time of our decision, there was only one private - sector instant payment system in the market, built by the largest banks. based on our experience, we did not believe that this system would ultimately reach all depository institutions, nor would other private - sector systems emerge to compete with it and extend the scope of that service. yet we knew from industry engagement that smaller banks across the country wanted a broadly accessible fast payment system, so we stepped in to address the clear coordination problem. this action is very much consistent with the federal reserve's role in the u. s. payment system historically. we have seen widespread adoption of the fednow service in just a little over a year since implementation, with close to 1, 000 depository institutions on the network including many of the largest banks that will drive origination volume. yet we are still at the beginning of a multiyear journey of establishing a ubiquitous network covering the majority of institutions in our country. variation around the world in domestic fast payment network adoption means that the value of globally interlinked systems is not yet clear. from a technical perspective, the promise of interlinking, which is essentially interoperability between or among domestic fast payment systems, is that fast payment networks can just " connect "'with each other and move payments globally. it sounds simple. in practice, however, achieving interoperability is not simple. technology is probably the easiest part. the legal, compliance, settlement, and governance challenges i mentioned earlier are more substantial. in addition, even when technological connections are in place, payments may not actually be instant as they traverse across systems because of domestic variations in iso 20022 implementation, which is the global standard used by most fast payment systems. to send an iso message seamlessly from one country to another across a technical link, operators need to coordinate and align on common practices. 3 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches we should consider that new multilateral arrangements for interlinking could potentially address some of the challenges that i have outlined. today, certain countries have established bilateral links between domestic fast payment systems primarily to support remittance payments. these

those who drive mncs in the west and japan. changing these institutional features of asian economies will be an arduous task. but over time the countries can, and must, change discredited practices. state - owned or family - run enterprises can be transformed into firms run along meritocratic lines by professional managers. greater public ownership can strengthen market discipline and the incentive to improve returns for all shareholders. companies that are not profitable have to be closed or restructured. asian leaders understand this. for example, the governor of the bank of thailand mr chatu mongol sonakul said, describing efforts to promote corporate governance in financial institutions and companies : 4 “ what we are doing is a very long process. we ’ re not talking of months or years. we are talking in, maybe, decades or generations. we ’ re not changing our way of working ; we actually try to change our way of life. ” governments play a key role in fostering and managing this process of change. they have to make the political judgment on how fast to go, how to sell the changes to the people, and what compromises are necessary. only they have the mandate to decide, and only they can take responsibility for the outcomes. south korea under president kim dae jung is a good example of how this can work, as well as of how difficult the process can be. external institutions like the imf and the world bank are also important, providing advice and applying pressure to do what is painful but necessary. this means that imf and world bank loans and assistance have to come with strict conditionality. but the line between essential conditionality and excessive intervention is a fine one. in indonesia, the imf pushed the suharto government hard, not just to deal with the immediate crisis, but to implement sweeping structural reforms. president suharto interpreted this as a threat to his own position, and treated the imf as an opponent rather than an ally. this contributed to a collapse of confidence, political turbulence, and finally suharto ’ s resignation in may 1998. whether or not the imf intended this outcome, it helped to precipitate a decisive and momentous change in indonesia, the consequences of which are still unfolding. singapore ’ s approach let me now turn to singapore ’ s experience in navigating through the crisis and preparing itself to meet the challenges of globalisation, especially in the financial sector. singapore is not entirely typical of the region. we are