a faster payment infrastructure that will make it possible to expand the range of payment possibilities in the payment system and to carry out, among other things, direct payments from a customers ’ account, conveniently and efficiently 24 hours a day, every day. promoting a faster payment system will reduce transaction costs, allow cross - border settlement, increase businesses ’ liquidity, and will reduce the use of cash. in addition, the bank of israel is examining additional steps to promote innovation and efficiency of the payment system in general, and of faster payment in particular. this is with an emphasis on the following issues : cross - broder payments, integration of electronic wallet payments, regulation of the execution of payments at businesses, and more. another project that the bank is promoting is open finance i would like to emphasize that from my perspective, its “ open finance ” and not “ open banking ”. the idea is to take away the control of customers ’ information and financial activities from the traditional financial entities and not just from banks, and to transfer the power to the customers themselves. we support promoting an “ open financial world ” which will include all the creators of all financial products. behind the scenes there will be a uniform api standard, which the bank is now promoting energetically, and that will allow a secure way to transfer customers ’ data from the customer ’ s service provider to a third party — such as another bank, a nonbank entity, a fintech company, etc. the advantages of this process are : strengthening the customer ’ s control over information about him or her, enhancing competition in the area of financial services, comparing costs, providing financial value proposals and financial intermediation, consulting on financial conduct, initiating financial activities, and more. in this regard, it is important for there to be access to all the financial players — to all the required information, as is generally accepted worldwide. these entities will be able to provide information and to offer advanced services. an additional issue that we are promoting is securitization a securitization transaction is one in which a corporation issues bonds whose maturity is secured by expected cash flows. while around the world the securitization market is about as 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches large as the corporate bond market, in israel this market is tiny and its value is only several billion shekels. this is, among other things, due to the lack of an appropriate regulatory infrastructure. the ability of the various entities to extend credit directly is limited,

to the payments system in israel is the same. most of the public do not know how it works and are not very interested either. that just goes to prove that the public knows that the payments system works well and that someone, i. e., the bank of israel, is taking care of it. i could go on and say similar things about each of the areas of the bank ’ s activity, such as its role as economic advisor to the government, and in this context the excellent degree of professionalism of the research department, and the currency department, and its expertise in its field. but time does not allow me to do so. it would be remiss of me at this point if i did not mention the important role played by the bank of israel in fashioning israel ’ s economy, in particular since 1986 following the implementation of the economic stabilization program. in the second half of the 1980s and during the 1990s the bank of israel initiated many far - reaching changes in israel ’ s economy, including liberalization, opening the economy to capital flows, and embarking on the disinflation process. this was not an easy period, and there was heated public debate and controversy all along the way. but the bank of israel, and i make special mention of the then governor professor jacob frenkel, succeeded in pushing the changes through, and the economy is currently enjoying the fruits of that success, and it can certainly be stated that it provided the very important infrastructure for the excellent situation of the economy today. since i took up office i have been trying to correct things that need correcting and to promote the process of streamlining and modernizing the bank. in these efforts i am joined by my colleagues, in particular the director general of the bank, jacob danon. the objectives we are pursuing are : ( a ) to solve the labor dispute in the bank ; ( b ) to carry out the reorganization process in the bank ; ( c ) to allow a few dozen employees who are under - employed to retire, so that the staff complement will drop by about 10 percent ; ( d ) to get a new bank of israel law passed ; and ( e ) to make extensive changes in the decision - making process in the bank. i have not included the matters we have already dealt with and will continue to deal with, such as setting up procedures for encouraging excellence in the bank and formulating a new organizational culture. with regard to the new law we have reached a very