characterized the country ’ s independence and aspirations, the bank of ghana pursued proactive policies to foster the credit system, creating financial institutions as growth - promoting vehicles, while exercising its fundamental responsibilities of currency management and acting as the government ’ s banker. the bank has been driven by the power of ideas ; by the influence of men and women in public roles and those privileged to serve the bank ; and by the twist and turns on the path of social and economic progress of the nation. monetary policy geared to supporting fiscal expansion for rapid growth under fixed exchange rate regime in a rapidly changing economic environment brought on balance of payments difficulties prompting parliament to arm the bank with the exchange control act to manage trade and foreign exchange transactions. the exchange controls and their administration came with its own problems, in terms of waste of resources and perverse incentives associated with distorted pricing, low growth and unemployment. the system over - extended the powers the bank was able to exercise and the economy became caught in monetary and fiscal instability. a prominent feature of the economic history is the gradual process of dismantling these controls and liberalization of the economy culminating in the passage of the foreign exchange act last year on the heels of stabilization of the economy. ladies and gentlemen, it has been fifty years and the bank is operating in a different statutory and macroeconomic context. to respond to changing domestic conditions and developments in central banking and monetary policy worldwide, the bank of ghana act ( 2002 ) was passed which bestowed independence on the central bank, leaving it free to refocus its policies on price and financial stability as a principal mandate. this marked the beginning of a new paradigm in defining what the bank of ghana represents and its role in monetary and financial management. the bank has taken seriously its mandate to focus on price stability as its primary goal, and as a guiding operational principle. we take it as demand by the public for price stability, and aversion to high inflation and currency volatility. the mandate is in a sense a search to entrench macroeconomic stability. that is a situation in which price and exchange rate movements are not a source of public anxiety, but rather a situation on which businesses and consumers can stretch their horizon and plan based on stable expectations with regard to investments, savings, productivity and value for their money. this is the best contribution that monetary policy and financial stability can make to accelerated growth on sustained basis. so, under the bank ’ s monetary policy framework, the monetary policy committee ’ s work really turns on

of written - off facilities in the published financial statements of banks. page | 3 we reviewed the governing legislations on the credit reference system to require banks to submit both positive and adverse information on borrowers to the bureaus through a new portal that has been developed. the bog also worked on the collateral registry system to address some outstanding issues with foreclosure. we are also supportive of government efforts to enhance clarity in the land acquisition process which transmits into the collateral perfection processes for banks. in addition, we are hopeful that the introduction of the ghana reference rate, ghana post gps and the national identification program would contribute to the ongoing measures aimed at reducing the incidence of loan defaults. mr. chairman, to fight financial crime means we needed to invest and strengthen our aml / cft regime by increasing the scope of aml risk - based supervision and collaborate with the financial intelligent centre ( fic ), economic and organized crime office ( eoco ) and other law enforcement agencies to enforce the aml / cft regulations. as we work closely with these agencies, the emerging area of crime that threatens the very existence of financial institutions is cybercrime. cyber criminals have managed to bypass security controls and to exploit breaches or vulnerabilities within the cyber and information security defenses of financial systems. in this regard, the central bank issued a draft directive on cyber and information security to the banking industry. page | 4 mr. chairman, we also issued the final directive of the capital requirement directive ( crd ) which addresses pillar one ( 1 ) of basel ii / iii capital regime. the pillar ii of the basel accord is expected to strengthen the supervisory review process. this would involve the internal capital adequacy assessment process ( icaap ) allowing banks to undertake an assessment of the capital commensurate with all their risk exposures. we are also driving the disclosure requirements in conformity with pillar iii of the basel accord to enhance appropriate information flow to market participants. the process of fully operationalising the bsdi act, 2016 ( act 930 ), is in progress and will continually reviewing the existing directives and regulations to align them with the act. in line with this, we issued the “ fit and proper ” directive, financial holding companies and the mergers and acquisitions directive. the central bank has adopted the accounting standard on financial instruments ( ifrs 9 ) since january this year. ifrs 9 requires banks to implement the expected credit loss model for the banking industry. though