In this regard, I wish to congratulate the banking institutions for completing the chip-based ATM cards migration, and introducing EMV-compliant credit cards and terminals to combat fraud, a technology leap that was indeed a challenging task. While the conversion of the credit card infrastructure to be EMV-compliant is an ongoing effort, I wish to commend the industry players, the issuers, acquirers and the affected merchants, particularly the petrol industry, for their positive response towards meeting the migration deadline. Ladies and Gentlemen, The desired migration to an electronic payments environment will not only be engineered through secured system architecture and active promotional programmes, but also induced by greater transparency. Banks need to be more transparent in the delivery and pricing of financial services, and highlight the underlying motivation and activities that banks undertake in prescribing financial services. Pricing will affect consumers’ preference and behaviour. In this regard, banks need to understand their own cost structure and price the payment services accordingly, to provide the incentive for the shift to electronic payments to take place. To foster greater efficiency in the payments system, its charges relative to other means of payments need to be structured accordingly to encourage greater use of the electronic channels as the preferred mode. These moves also need to be complemented with ample provision of electronic payment methods that are comparable to the other means of payments in terms of its reach and convenience.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Bank Negara Malaysia attaches great importance to payment system efficiency and will also continue to promote its security, reliability and efficiency, together with the industry and payment service providers, to foster an innovative payments industry. The FPX platform is an excellent example of this collaborative effort, and I wish to commend MEPS, and the pilot group of banks and corporations for their tremendous effort and commitment in developing the FPX solution. The launching of the FPX marks an important milestone in the development of Malaysia’s payments system. Thank you. 2  BIS Review 63/2004