the high penetration rate of mobile phones in the country, where even low - income earners own cell phones — the ability of fintech to accelerate financial inclusion is well recognized. while we are leveraging on fintech, a lot of work still needs to be done before the philippines becomes a truly financially inclusive economy. many filipinos still do not own bank accounts, and so are unable to access loans and other financial services from formal channels. nevertheless, we are working our way there. first, internet and mobile phone banking. banks that offer internet and mobile phone banking have increased over the years. this has allowed more people to do online transactions, not only to pay bills and purchase merchandise goods, but also to avail themselves of savings, investments, and insurance products. as of end - 2018, there were 48 banks that have already made their financial services accessible through the internet, and 26 banks that have made their services accessible through mobile phones. 2 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches second, interoperable payment systems. in the past, transferring funds from an account in one bank to another account in a different bank required physical movement of cash. now, following the launch of interoperable payments systems, funds can be transferred electronically through instapay, for low - value and real - time fund transfers, and pesonet, for bigger - value fund transfers confirmed within the same banking day. as of end - july 2019, there were 43 financial institutions participating in instapay and 51 participating in pesonet, with more to come. third, the philippine id system. following the signing into law of the philippine identification system act ( philsys ) in august last year, the country will soon have a national identification system. the objective is for all filipinos to be properly identified using a unified system that gathers basic identification and biometrics information. the bsp has assumed the task of printing the ids. we are doing this because we don ’ t want we expect the philippine id system to significantly hasten financial inclusion, as this addresses the problem of lack of formal ids — which are required to open a bank account. fourth, non - bank electronic money issuers. a recent phenomenon that is significantly boosting financial inclusion in the country is the emergence of non - bank e - money issuers. these are entities other than banks that also allow people to create electronic accounts in their platforms where people can store value in these electronic accounts, and make payments or do

not see convincing evidence that structural reforms are impossible without strong market pressure. moreover, where very strong market pressure does lead to reforms, are we sure that they are the right ones? often we have seen in recent years that, when countries face severe sovereign debt tensions, they prioritise raising taxes rather than cutting unproductive monatsbericht oktober 2015. bis central bankers ’ speeches expenditure and delay structural reforms. those reforms that countries really need to boost their long - term growth – such as improving education or judiciary – do not come about in a crisis environment. they have to come about through societies recognising their deep - rooted challenges and collectively fixing them. but let ’ s imagine for a moment that all this were not the case – that market pressure was essential for structural reforms to happen – should that really be a factor in how the ecb makes its policy? remember that we have been given a narrow mandate in the treaty to deliver euro area price stability, and that narrow mandate is what justifies our independence. nowhere in the treaty does it say that the ecb should set interest rates in such a way as to force policy changes on unwilling governments. for us to do that would be undemocratic and a misuse of the independence we have been given. if anybody is to put pressure on governments to enact structural reforms, it has to be other governments within a democratically - agreed framework. indeed, this is why the ecb has frequently called for stronger european institutions for economic policymaking. the point here is that one cannot expect the ecb to deliver the objectives that rightfully belong to other policymakers. we will meet our price stability mandate, as we are obliged to do in the treaty. but it is up to individual countries to build on that foundation and make their economies work better ; and it is up to the euro area as a whole to strengthen the institutional architecture of our union. only with such a common, comprehensive response can we durably leave this crisis behind, and re - focus on the purpose for which the euro was launched : the unity and prosperity of the peoples of europe. that is no doubt a challenging task. but the cultural days are a reminder what europe is all about and why it is worth standing up for. bis central bankers ’ speeches