our gratitude to the minister of finance and the national treasury for their support and cooperation. let me highlight some of the salient events in the extensive process leading up to this significant event. the design and development of the banknotes, even though these are only upgraded banknotes, has been a complex and intricate task. our team has spent a number of years on this endeavour. we had to obtain the services of international companies in the determination of the changes, both for the design and security features on the banknotes, as well as the supply of banknote paper, inks and security threads. the changes to the banknotes have been widely consulted on with the key stakeholders. consultations have taken place with the department of arts and culture on the coat of arms, with the pan south african language board ( pansalb ) on the language changes, with the national council for the blind on the changes with regards to the features for the blind or partially sighted and with various international and local service providers and the banking industry on the utilisation of the security features in processing and vending machines that have become part of our daily lives. today is a momentous day as the bank unveils the upgraded banknotes to the public. simultaneously, today we launch the communication campaign to inform and educate the public on the changes to the design and security features of south africa ’ s banknotes. the objective of the communication campaign is not only to inform and educate the public on the security features, but also to get the public to habitually examine their banknotes to ensure that they have good money. i trust that our key partners in the private and public sectors will play a significant role in ensuring that their constituencies know about the new features and encourage them to check the features on their banknotes. we trust that the media will also play its rightful role in informing and educating the public and in so doing protecting the public and ensuring that we give no quarter to criminals should they attempt to counterfeit our currency. all five denominations of the upgraded banknotes will go into circulation on 1 february 2005. the new banknotes will be issued gradually over time. we must therefore highlight that the upgraded banknotes and the current banknotes will circulate simultaneously. it is important to note that the sa reserve bank has not “ demonetised ” any of its currency. this means we can all confidently continue to use all south african money, even if it is part of a previous series. we encourage all south africans to

much more risk that it could reasonably manage – and the rest, is history. while the global financial crisis has inspired much conversation about ethics and culture, these issues are by no means new. throughout the 2000s, an estimated 45 million payment protection insurance ( ppi ) policies worth around £44 billion were widely mis - sold to customers in the uk. many people did not even know that they were buying a ppi policy. in one example, a ppi policy bundled with a mortgage – cost the customer more than £20, 000 over the term of the loan, even though the maximum amount claimable was only £31, 000! the fsa reported that this abuse stemmed from “ a culture in banks and other firms that focussed on profit over customer outcomes ”. closer to our region, we saw in 2001 the unexpected failure of the australian hih insurance group, which experienced estimated losses totalling aud 5. 3 billion. this was attributed in part to a culture where the board was “ unduly deferential ” to management, and staff simply did not question leadership decisions. in fact, instances of failures in professionalism and integrity do not seem to have waned since the global financial crisis. according to the boston consulting group, banks have paid fines amounting to usd 321 billion to regulators around globe since the crisis through the end of 2016. instances of misconduct range widely – from the well - known rigging of libor and euribor rates, to the more recently uncovered case of wells fargo, where over 2 million fake accounts were 1 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches opened under a senior management who fostered “ an atmosphere that prompted low quality sales and improper and unethical behaviour ”. our financial industry is not invulnerable to the ethical challenge. in the 1980s and 90s, we had cases of malaysian banks that suffered significant losses arising from imprudent lending under ethically questionable decisions by top management. in the past two years, more than rm 100 million in fines were meted out for breaches under the purview of bank negara malaysia and the securities commission malaysia. a study led by the university of malaya and the aicb in 2014 revealed that 43 % of employees within the malaysian conventional banking sector “ had observed or had first - hand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace ”. i believe that the survey findings which the fspb will present later today will reveal that not enough has improved since then. it is crucial