I know a number of you have travelled from abroad to be here, and we appreciate your attendance and participation. Today is a momentous occasion. The South African Reserve Bank is launching a communication campaign to showcase the country’s new banknote series and to inform the public about the unique features of South Africa’s new banknotes.
Like traditional banking, the shadow banking sector facilitates maturity transformation (that is, it is used to fund longer-term, less-liquid assets with short-term, more-liquid liabilities), and it channels savings into specific investments, mostly debt-like instruments. In part, the rapid growth of shadow banking reflected various types of regulatory arbitrage – for example, the minimization of capital requirements.