For the insurance industry, more needs to be done to provide products that cater for the OKUs’ needs and to address the issue of high loading of insurance premium imposed by the insurers. Another area for consideration – employment opportunities for OKUs On another aspect, the Government has issued a service circular to implement a 1% policy on employment opportunities for OKUs in the public sector as well as provided incentive by giving double tax relief for employers of OKU. It is encouraging to note that several financial institutions have provided opportunities for the OKUs to be employed in the financial industry and recognized that they have the necessary capabilities to contribute to the financial industry. Nevertheless, more needs to be done and I hope financial institutions will provide the opportunity for more OKUs to be employed in the financial industry. Global trend-benchmarking with financial sector in other countries showed that they are more advanced On the global front, looking at the trends and initiatives by other countries, especially the developed countries, we observe that the industry associations are very proactive and undertake a leading role in ensuring the OKUs’ rights are met. For example, the Australian Bankers’ Association issued Guiding Principles for Accessible Authentication to provide guidance to financial institutions to adopt stronger authentication technologies to facilitate the access of people with disabilities.
They contain Braille markings as well as tactile symbols to denote each denomination. In 2000, Bank Negara Malaysia presented 13,000 units of Ringgit cash test cards to the visually impaired which measured third series banknotes of all denominations. This year, the Bank will distribute 20,000 units of Ringgit cash test cards to the visually impaired. The Bank has made several improvements to the new cash test card design including to measure the fourth series banknotes and a coin channel to measure third series coins after obtaining feedback from the National Council for the Blind, the Malaysian Association for the Blind and Kementerian Pembangunan Wanita, Keluarga dan Masyarakat. In conjunction with this program, I would like to take this opportunity to launch the new cash test card. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5