Distinguished Guest, Ladies and Gentlemen, Financial access broadly refers to the reach of financial institutions and their products to the doorsteps of the people throughout the country. This would create opportunities for the people to involve themselves in in-come generating activities and hence improve their wellbeing.
In two words, it was an underdeveloped bureaucratic financial system and supervision was moulded accordingly. The liberalisation of the financial system completed after Greece’s entry into the euro area, and the merging of many small banks into bigger units made the  BIS Review 10/2009  1  banking system very competitive.