come cheaply but it is the price that people know that they have to pay for the protection of their physical properties. 3. in the cyber world, just like the real world, there are plenty of risks and dangers. financial crimes will occur whenever there is money to be made and for sure criminals and hackers alike will use their best endeavours to penetrate the defence of the cyber world to rob or steal. the strength of the cyber world also lies its main weakness. hackers can choose to attack customers and financial firms any time and anywhere because the virtual world is highly interconnected. cyber attacks can take many different forms. a frequently used method is to make phishing attempts to trick customers into divulging their account information and passwords, or to plant malwares into customers ’ computers and mobile phones to steal their access credentials. then the hackers transfer moneys from the victims ’ accounts. sometimes the hackers would do something unusual, such as the recent example in bis central bankers ’ speeches hong kong in which some customers ’ bank accounts had been used by hackers to conduct unauthorized stock trading without stealing money from the victims ’ accounts. at the bank level, the usual form of attacks would be distributed denial of services ( ddos ), whether they are motivated by blackmail, revenge or activism of some sort. there is a worrying trend that this form of attacks is rising very fast in recent years. cybersecurity fortification initiative 4. rather than harbouring the hope that you are lucky enough not to be targeted, it is more prudent and productive to take the necessary pre - emptive steps to protect yourself or your customers from cyber attacks. cybersecurity is the very foundation of modern banking and without it there is no point for us to boast hong kong as a world class international financial centre. while banks in hong kong have so far had very few incidents of serious cyber attacks, there is no place for complacency if we wish to maintain hong kong ’ s competitive edge as the preferred financial hub in asia. in this connection, the hkma has earlier this year set up a new fintech facilitation office, which has taken cybersecurity as its top priority mission. having worked very closely with the banking industry and other stakeholders, i am very pleased to announce today that the hkma has decided to launch for the banking system a “ cybersecurity fortification initiative ”, which is known as “ cfi ” in

of 1995. in addition, intra - eu direct investment has risen significantly since the start of emu. in the year 2000, it actually rose by 50 percent. today, intra - eu fdi accounts for one - quarter of world foreign direct investment. fdi stocks show a similar picture. intra - eu fdi stocks make up 22 percent of world fdi stocks. almost one - half of the fdi stock originating in the european union is invested in another eu member state. the fdi statistics clearly show, first, that economic integration in the eu is intense, and, second, that economic integration deepened fast after the introduction of the common currency. these observations are borne out by the trade statistics. about one - half of the external trade of the euro - area member states is intra - euro - area trade. vii it is in the financial markets that the benefits of a common european currency are to be felt most clearly. the implications of the euro are obvious : rising liquidity, deepening and widening of the money, bond and stock markets, reduction of transaction costs and abolition of currency risks. the euro speeds up financial market integration. correspondingly, the functioning of the european monetary union depends heavily on a high degree of financial market integration. its smooth functioning enables monetary transmission to work. progress in this field is tremendous, but more is yet to come. those parts of the european financial markets that are crucial to the transmission of the eurosystem ’ s monetary policy are already integrated to our satisfaction. the wholesale market for interbank liquidity in the euro area is now actually a single european money market. in addition, european banks are interconnected in a common payment - system infrastructure. and improvements to the euro - area - wide payment system are being undertaken. a few days ago, the plus bundesbank launched its new payment system rtgs, which improves security, reduces liquidity needs and expedites settlements of gross payments. through this system, about 8, 500 banks and credit institutions, including their branches all over the world, are accessible. the most impressive progress, in terms of integration, has been witnessed in the euro - area bond markets. yield differences among the government bonds of the different participants have narrowed from more than five percentage points before emu to some 30 basis points nowadays. the remaining spread is mainly due to the varying liquidity of the papers issued. currency risks or divergent monetary policies no longer disturb the euro - area - wide diversification. in terms