*  *  *  Every year, your industry comes together to exchange views on the prospects for the year ahead. With your theme this year “Thrift Banks: Preparing for 2015 ASEAN Integration”, the thrift banking industry is recognizing a development that has quietly evolved through the years and will soon crystalize.
ASEAN integration – broadly through the ASEAN Financial Integration Framework or AFIF and more specifically through the ASEAN Banking Integration Framework or ABIF – will come to fruition in line with the ASEAN 2020 vision that was enunciated way back in 2007. It is, in this sense, imminent and the Chamber is being responsive by preparing for this eventuality.