benjamin e diokno : financial digitalization - harnessing potentials for a better post - covid philippine economy speech by mr benjamin e diokno, governor of bangko sentral ng pilipinas ( bsp, the central bank of the philippines ), at the hsbc “ asean next – dialogue on digital banks ”, 30 november 2021. * * * ladies and gentlemen, a pleasant day to all of you. i thank hsbc for inviting me to speak in your “ asean next — dialogue on digital banks ”. the covid - 19 crisis has brought enormous challenges for economies worldwide. we at the central bank are harnessing the potentials of financial technology to help achieve full recovery and realize a stronger post - covid philippine economy. following the 12. 0 - percent rebound in the second quarter, the economy grew by 7. 1 percent, the highest among asean nations. the further de - escalation of alert level and easing of mobility restrictions nationwide, but especially in the national capital region, would help restore jobs in the last quarter of this year. based on google mobility, we continue to see significant progress in mobility versus last year. the economic recovery is being supported by positive developments on the monetary, external and banking fronts. price movement is manageable, providing an enabling environment for pickup in consumption and investments. looking ahead, inflation could settle above the 2 to 4 percent target this year on account of supply - side pressures but is expected to revert to the target range in 2022 and 2023. external trade has recovered. from january to september, exports grew by 18 percent, while imports grew by 30. 3 percent. meanwhile, foreign direct investments jumped almost 40 percent in the first eight months of the year with the bulk coming from manufacturing and financial services. our external payments position remains strong. as of october, the gross international reserves stood at us $ 108 billion. this is equivalent to almost 11 months ’ worth of imports of goods and payment of services and primary income. the conventional wisdom is that 3 months ’ worth of imports is sufficient. let ’ s now move on to the philippine banking sector ’ s performance. benefitting from regulatory reforms of the past two decades, banks in the country have built resilience to shocks. while the pandemic caused a rise in soured debts, asset quality remains sound. banks also have ample buffers against credit losses. for one, philippine banks have generally observed prudent lending standards amid sound regulatory environment

amando m tetangco, jr : corporate governance reform in the philippines – progress and challenges speech by mr amando m tetangco, jr, governor of the central bank of the philippines ( bangko sentral ng pilipinas ), at the asian roundtable on corporate governance, manila, 9 september 2009. * * * this roundtable conference on corporate governance is indeed timely as the world now moves to redefine the global corporate, financial and regulatory architecture with the view to prevent the recurrence of a similar crisis in the near or distant future. many have concluded that this crisis was to an important extent the result of poor adherence to the core tenets of good governance. decisions overstepped the principles of good governance either due to excessive risk - taking, conflicts of interest and or opacity of transactions. in the bsp, we take governance of banks seriously because we know banks are key in keeping the economy well functioning and growing. one of the main reasons our economy has weathered the crisis relatively better than most in our region is that our financial system has continued to function normally even at the height of the crisis in the last quarter of 2008. in this regard, please allow me to walk you through bsp ’ s initiatives to strengthen good governance in the financial industry and our continuing efforts to ensure that good governance principles are woven into the organizational culture and operations of our supervised institutions. bsp initiatives on corporate governance setting the tone from the top at the bsp, we believe that the corporate governance principles of fairness, accountability and transparency should complement our banking reform advocacies. when we were trying to flesh out the implementation of these tenets to banks, we asked ourselves where better to set the tone of good governance than at the corporate top? indeed we wanted to ensure that only those deemed “ fit and proper ” for the jobs are confirmed to assume their posts. to accomplish this, we issued regulations that set out standards on the qualifications of directors and key officers of financial institutions, putting as much weight on competence as on integrity. the bsp likewise required the members of the board to attend a seminar on corporate governance to formally structure the learning on the ethos of good governance. for this undertaking, the bsp accredited seven ( 7 ) training providers, which include the institute of corporate directors. we have also made explicit our expectations from the board of directors of our supervised financial institutions. we have issued regulations clearly identifying the duties and responsibilities that the board itself and