major payment system strategies that had been identified in the blue book had been achieved. the south african payment industry has matured immensely since the launch of the blue book and subsequently two additional vision documents with a shorter time horizon of five years, namely, vision 2010 and vision 2015, were established to guide the development of the payment system into the future. i would like to briefly sketch a broad outline of the payments industry in south africa, before delving into the achievements made in the payment space since the introduction of the blue book. at the end of august 2012, there were 24 active settlement participants in the south african multiple options settlement system ( samos ). the bulk of settlement happens in the real time stream, which captures over 90 per cent of settlements, the remainder accounted for by the retail stream. the latter has experienced a significant increase in electronic funds transfer ( eft ) credits over the years, increasing from 58 per cent of the retail stream in 2005 to 74 per cent in 2011. there has also been a substantial decline in cheque usage, given that this is a relatively expensive payment instrument and much more vulnerable to fraud. in volume terms, the bulk of purchases at retailers are in cash ( 5. 3 billion ), as compared to credit ( 360 million ) and debit cards ( 460 million ). in value terms, however, the difference is less stark, as cash accounts for r332 billion worth of purchases at retailers, and credit and debit cards accounting for r134 billion and r120 billion respectively. as at december 2011, there were a total of 24 063 automatic teller machines and 277 478 point of sale devices. if one looks at the number of cards in issue, debit cards are by far the most widely used, amounting to 42 million out of a total number of cards in issuance of 62 million. credit cards in issue are just under 8 million and gifts or pre - paid cards being the next highest at 5. 8 million. the growth in the credit card industry has been hit by the global financial crisis, largely owing to more stringent borrowing terms and shrinking credit limits. the use of mobile devices by banks ’ clients, to access their accounts and to initiate / facilitate transactions, has also grown significantly over the past few years. these mobile devices include mobile phones and the various tablets available in the market today. there has also been a steady increase in the use of mobile phones to facilitate person to person payments / transfers. since the

. accessing data is perhaps the easy part. the first hurdle is deciding how the outlook for domestic and global economy impacts on future inflation. to clear this hurdle requires the team to interpret current economic conditions and events, and to apply judgement about the likely future path of the economy. there are many factors that the team must consider, and they are often moving in different directions, making judgment on how they will affect future inflation that much more difficult. at the end of it all, committees rely on judgement in making the call whether to cut, increase, or keep interest rates unchanged. monetary policy decisions in the sarb are made by the monetary policy committee ( mpc ). the mpc currently comprises six members, being the governor, the three deputy governors, and two other senior officials of the sarb. every decision of the mpc is an outcome of in - depth discussion and debate. even a'no change'decision is a policy decision. i should also note that the monetary policy decision is not a one - off event ; it is a continuous process which culminates in the mpc meeting where decisions are finally taken. we are constantly talking to each other, discussing what we see and how we interpret what we see. there is a sizeable literature on the relative efficiency of committee - based decision making. a committee tends to pool information and ideas from a group comprising different skills and views, and it also provides insurance against extreme preferences and outcomes. so, there is an additional benefit that participation in the mpc schools challenge potentially offers learners. and that is that those learners get an opportunity to develop or put their social skills into practice. by social skills i mean the ability to interact with fellow human beings. literature shows that the ability to interact with fellow workers, successfully working as a team remains among the most important skills in the modern economy. this is because technology has yet to successfully simulate human interaction. the ability to listen to the views of your colleagues, question or debate the issues they raise and attempt to persuade them otherwise has a broad societal benefit, way beyond application in policymaking. in that sense, the ability to engage with the ideas of fellow workers and collaborate with them will, for a long time to come, remain one of the prized skills by employers. the mpc schools challenge is therefore a contribution by the sa reserve bank towards improving the understanding by young south africans of how the economy works, why high inflation is bad for an economy and how the monetary policy committee makes