caribbean. all other dics were established in the context of a bank failure. this is a great beginning for our dic. commercial banks are also positioned to benefit from a reduction in tax on assets to assist in funding their contribution to the new deposit insurance corporation. i believe that this too makes our beginning different. i expect you will, in due course, be hearing from the new chairman who is the new spokesman for the dic and less from me on this topic. ladies and gentlemen, let me in conclusion once more applaud the decision of firstcaribbean to construct this facility at warrens. as barbados strives to become a financial hub in the caribbean region more of these kinds of initiatives will be required if we are to achieve that goal. i am confident that the business centre will adequately deliver the services for which it was intended and i wish that all the employees who will work here will have the most rewarding experiences. i thank you for your attention.

non - banks gains more importance when e - wallets and pre - paid instruments are widely accepted as convenient channels of effecting payment ; the impact of such instruments in replacing the physical needs of cash in an economy is enormous and warrants delicate policy handling. another issue that needs to be examined in retail payment systems, relates to the role of industry organisations and self - regulatory organisations in meeting the expectations of various consumer - groups, information dissemination, building awareness of the products among the banks ’ operational staff, public and the like as also in promoting the usage thereof. consolidation of infrastructure and patronising umbrella organisations is what we have been aiming at in india. recently the national payments corporation of india ( npci ), an umbrella organisation set - up by banks, has been institutionalised which is expected to take over the various retail payment products operating in the country. being an organisation with banks as stakeholders, npci is expected to provide uniformity in operations, standard operating procedures, and promote resiliency and efficiency of the retail payments infrastructure. the seminar would also give us the opportunity of learning from developments in various jurisdictions. uk has recently implemented the benchmark 24x7 system ( known as faster payments service ), wherein retail customers are in a position to transfer funds at any point of time in a day, while the related inter - bank settlements take place only during the working of hours of the rtgs system. bank customers can initiate such transfers either through net or phone banking. i believe the speakers from the people ’ s bank of china would also be sharing with us their experience and success of similar systems implemented in their country. in india, the neft ( a retail electronic funds transfer facility ), has six net settlements during the day, for providing funds transfer facilities. this network handles transfer volumes of around three million transactions a month, while that in uk, i understand, handles as high a volume as five million a day. as i said earlier, the issues are endless, and before i take your leave, let me flag a few developments which are presently being considered by us. these relate to white - labelling of atms ( complete out - sourcing of most of the atm - related activities by banks ), cash withdrawal at points - of - sale, transfer of social security benefits through electronic means, hastening the migration of paper instruments to the paper - less mode, two - factor authentication for use of cards, consolidation of infrastructure, supporting the need for a single national - id for