Leasi Papali’i Scanlan: Financial inclusion and mobile banking in Samoa Address by Mr Leasi Papali’i Scanlan, Governor of the Central Bank of Samoa, at the official opening of the Workshop/Information Exchange on “Financial Inclusion and Mobile Banking in Samoa”, Apia, 20 January 2010. *  *  *  At the outset, I would like to thank all of you for accepting our invitation to participate in today’s Workshop on Mobile Money and Mobile Banking, which are two key strategies for implementing what is known as Financial Inclusion. I would also like to extend a warm welcome to our partners on financial inclusion in the Pacific, Mr. Tillman Bruett and Mr. Michael McCaffrey of the United Nations Capital Development Fund’s Pacific Financial Inclusion Program. As stated in our invitation letter, you have been identified as Individuals and Representatives of Organizations with the potential to make a significant contribution to financial inclusion and financial literacy; especially those of you with an interest in mobile telephones and financial services businesses in general. I trust that the free exchange of your valuable knowledge and experiences, will not only greatly benefit the other Participants of today’s Workshop but also Financial Inclusion (as a whole) in Samoa. In July 2009, I attended a Pacific Regional Meeting in Fiji to discuss the advent of Microfinance in the Pacific. At this Meeting, I was introduced to the concept of Financial Inclusion, and I was subsequently convinced of its relevance and importance to Samoa.
That’s why I think it was the right thing to remove a degree of monetary accommodation. And while things might change – they always do – we will continue to act in a way that ensures stable inflation over the medium term while still providing what support we can to jobs and economic activity. Thank you. 14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  14  References Beaudry, P. and Portier, F. (2006), ‘Stock prices, news, and economic fluctuations’, American Economic Review, Vol. 96, No. 4. Broadbent, B. (2012), ‘Productivity and the allocation of resources’, Speech given at Durham Business School, available at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/archive/Documents/historicpubs/speeches/2012/speech599.pdf Broadbent, B. (2017), ‘Brexit and the pound’, Speech given at Imperial College, available at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2017/speech969.pdf. Carroll, C. (2001), “A theory of the consumption function, with and without liquidity constraints”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 15, No. 3. Deaton, A. (1992), Understanding consumption, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Di Pace, F., King, P. and Theodoridis K. (2017), ‘Assessing the effects of supple side news in a DSGE model estimated for the UK’, mimeo. Kamber, G., Theodoridis, K. and Thoenissen, C. (2017), ‘News-driven business cycles in small open economies, Journal of International Economics, Vol. 105. Kurmann, A. and Otrok, C. (2013), ‘News shocks and the slope of the term structure of interest rates’, American Economic Review, Vol. 103, No. 6. 15  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  15