We have had an impressive annual increase in factor productivity of per cent , while capital intensity has increased by a modest 0.1%. The fact that this change began in the same year that the Economics Commission presented its proposals is probably mainly coincidence, but the fact that a macroeconomic stabilisation has a rapid and enduring effect on the development of productivity has been proved by the economist Easterly, amongst others. That is to say, the combination of price and budget stability is an important explanation of developments in total factor productivity. It is probably due to stable prices providing a better information value in relative prices, which improves the allocation of resources. The combination of price stability and budget stability also increases willingness in the household sector and corporate sector to make long-term decisions. If we consider other factors that stimulate the rise in total factor productivity, there are a number of changes that play a central role. In general, one tends to seek explanations for increasing factor productivity among factors such as technological developments, education, competence and incentives among the labour force, allocation of resources in society, as well as between and within branches and companies. There is therefore a large group of possible factors, but many of these are connected to general incentives behind the transformation and to the capacity to utilise technological progress in the world around us. The allocation of resources in society includes an area where important changes were implemented mainly before the days of the Lindbeck Commission.
FPS operates 24 x 7, which means that users can initiate or receive a payment or fund transfer any time throughout the year. It will be very user-friendly as mobile phone numbers or email addresses can be used for receiving HKD or RMB funds. Settlement between banks is real-time, and Hong Kong is one of the few jurisdictions achieving real-time settlement in a retail payment infrastructure. Both banks and SVFs can participate in FPS. This creates a retail payment ecosystem that facilitates money transfers among users of banks and SVFs. The full interconnectivity of all payment participants is, again, likely to be one of first in the world. In addition to FPS, the HKMA is leading a working group to work on a common QR code standard for retail payments. A common QR code standard will facilitate merchants, especially SMEs, in using one single QR code to accept different payment schemes. This would certainly help promote the wider use of mobile retail payments in Hong Kong. 3/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  (B)  Supervisory Sandbox 2.0  The HKMA will upgrade the existing Fintech Supervisory Sandbox to Sandbox 2.0. There will be three new features in this enhanced version. First, we will set up a Fintech Supervisory Chatroom that would engage the stakeholders at a much earlier stage of project development. The Chatroom will be manned by experts from our Fintech Facilitation Office and Banking Supervision Department.