Europe is lagging far behind in this area: such financing only represents 68% of GDP in the euro area compared with 128% in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2016. Creating the Financing Union would magnify the impact of national reforms: whereas they foster firms’ willingness to invest, the Financing Union would foster firm s ’ ability to invest, and they would together foster microeconomic dynamics and competitiveness. 5/8  BIS central bankers' speeches  The efforts so far are going in the right direction, but work should now be accelerated. The building blocks already exist: the Juncker investment plan; the Capital Markets Union (CMU), which supports the diversification of private financing; and the Banking Union, which tackles the fragmentation issue. These initiatives have to be brought together into the FUII in order to go beyond administrative or bureaucratic borders, create synergies, and therefore give new impetus to this agenda. Think for instance of a real European venture capital. To be more concrete, progress towards a Financing Union for Investment and Innovation requires fleshing out proposals in four key areas: First, completing the Banking Union. This means, as a priority, finalising the Banking Union’s second pillar, namely the single resolution. Within a strong Banking Union framework, banks in the euro area will thus be able to engage in cross-border consolidations on a sound and safe basis and therefore contribute to further reducing financial fragmentation. This also includes harmonising insolvency regimes for businesses.
Mr Chairman, I am informed that one of the notable projects being undertaken collaboratively is on ICT Governance implementation within the central banks using the Control Objectives for Information and related Technologies (COBIT) framework. BIS Review 42/2008  1  Ladies and Gentlemen, you will be delighted to learn that just last week a number of board members from central banks in Africa and across the world converged here in Livingstone to discuss the subject “Trends in Central Bank Governance”. Indeed good corporate governance is generally acknowledged as important in economic management and therefore, the role that ICT Governance plays, in this regard, can not be over emphasized. I am also informed that this conference will discuss some of the solutions available for implementing Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and the progress so far made in this regard. Indeed business continuity planning and management for ICT resources is critical to the operations of our Central Banks. The level of investment and dependence on ICT services is significant and few organizations could operate for long today without these resources. I therefore urge you to critically review this area that is equally important to the implementation of good corporate governance. Mr Chairman, allow me also to talk about financial inclusion or access to finance for all. Ladies and Gentlemen, as you are aware most of our rural areas are mostly unbanked due to infrastructural obstacles.