Again, this is an economy which has just been through a recession and is still experiencing the unwinding of the equity price bubble. In the case of the Euro area, the situation is closer to normality, but growth over the past year has been negligible; not surprisingly, the cash rate is still only 3¼ per cent.
As part of this, we take pride in some of the efforts which have been made over the years in this area including modernization of existing financial sector laws, such as the banking, insurance, securities, microfinance, pension, financial cooperatives, agent banking, credit reference bureau, payment systems, introduction of the National Switch which has promoted mobile money banking, which have all improved the architecture of our financial systems and advanced the financial inclusion agenda.