In the case of Internet and telephone payments, the use of credit cards, new person-to-person systems, and new ACH payment types allowed payments to be made more rapidly at any time of the day, even when the parties to the transaction were thousands of miles apart.
I would also like to express my appreciation to Noreen Doyle, First Vice-President of the EBRD, and Willem Buiter, for their distinguished service to the EBRD, and to wish them well in their future endeavors. The countries of this region continue to face formidable economic and political challenges.