and overall economic development interests. central banks, therefore, monitor developments in the payment systems to assess their impact on the demand for money, monetary policy and financial system stability. in many of the saarc countries and elsewhere, the central banks have been playing multifaceted roles like operators, owners, facilitators, regulators, overseers, users and service providers of their national payment systems. through these roles, central banks have acquired expertise, skills and in - depth knowledge on the role of the payment mechanisms in the financial system and the economy. we need to make use of this expertise and share it with others in the region and elsewhere. a regional payment initiative would be a vehicle which would help to achieve this objective. central banks can advise on payment related financial policy and act as effective catalysts, together with private sector organizations, in initiating, promoting and contributing to payment system reforms. by and large, payment reforms, be it national or regional, have been promoted and led by central banks, except in few countries like canada where the private sector initiative has been significant. the central banks in the saarc region also have the ability to play the leadership or catalyst role by providing policy directions, preparing roadmaps in consultation with other stakeholders and guiding national and regional payment system reforms and taking the responsibility to develop a common payment policy framework acceptable to all countries in the region. we need to pay attention to the existing regional clearing mechanisms as well. as in the case of the asian clearing union ( acu ), if there are delays in processing payment instruments, combined with official accounting practices for payments that give rise to a float on the balance sheets of the central banks, that will contribute to inefficiency and uncertainty in the payment process. it is significant to note that such inefficiencies can extend to the central bank ’ s monetary operations and liquidity estimates as floating acu balances cannot be treated as part of the international reserves of member central banks. lack of clarity about rights and responsibilities regarding funds on the move is another shortcoming, especially where processing systems and accounting procedures result in long delays between the time a payment instruction is issued and the time it is cleared and settled. both at national and regional level, supervision and oversight of payment systems have always received less attention compared to the supervision of banks and financial institutions. when there are cross border payments and common clearing and settlement mechanisms, it is important to ensure that there is a well - designed supervisory system. the supervisors

times a year. statistics was one of the first areas in which such co - operation was established. this is entirely logical, since without the creation of a basic statistical framework it would not have been possible to communicate on monetary policy matters. among the most important outcomes was a creation of monetary survey. this survey made it possible to compile monetary and credit aggregates. one of the preconditions for influencing the money supply was to establish what is known as the “ monetary base ”. the ongoing liberalisation process meant that it was no longer important to divide the balance of payments statistics into koruna and foreign currency transactions. this classification was replaced by a standard breakdown into transactions between residents and non - residents. numerous statistics linked with regulation were gradually abolished as individual areas of economic activity were liberalised. these examples merely illustrate how the central bank ’ s entire statistical system was rebuilt from scratch. let me now move on to the more recent past. in 1999 we began to co - operate closely with european institutions. the main topics included monetary and banking statistics, balance of payments statistics and more recently also financial accounts, government financial statistics and general economic statistics. the development of statistics was influenced by a need to standardise each area to ensure compatibility between the eu member states and the candidate countries. hand in hand with these contacts, we began to work much more closely with the czech statistical office. in the area of statistics the czech statistical office is the natural and closest partner of the czech national bank, since these two institutions are the major producers of statistical information in the czech republic. the czech statistical office conducts a far wider range of statistical surveys, providing aggregate information on the national economy, territory, climate, environment, population, elections and other areas of life and activity of our country. the czech national bank is above all a user of economic statistics and collaborates most closely in this area. as both a user and a partner, we can affirm that the quality of the office ’ s statistical output has increased immensely over the transformation period. examples include the publication of national accounts according to international standards and the compilation of data on the government debt and deficit. the czech national bank focuses mainly on monetary and banking statistics and balance of payments statistics. the harmonisation of the monetary statistics with european standards was recently completed in both main components balance sheet statistics and interest rate statistics. monetary and credit aggregates and interest rates are now methodologically comparable with the data of other eu member states. speaking of harmonisation, i