Measures taken by Bank Negara Malaysia to promote financial inclusion Since its inception in 1959, getting the public to have access to financial services has always been a focus area for Bank Negara Malaysia. In the Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009, financial inclusion has also been legislated as one of Bank Negara Malaysia’s primary functions. Bank Negara Malaysia has designed the development of a diversified financial system which meets the needs of various consumers and businesses. Many efforts were implemented. For example, to facilitate ease of access to bank accounts, Bank Negara Malaysia has introduced basic banking service, a no frills and low cost savings account. On the financing side, the Pembiayaan Mikro framework was established in 2006 to facilitate the provision of uncollateralised micro financing by financial institutions in a fast, easy and convenient manner. The Central Bank has also focused on strengthening the enabling infrastructure through the establishment of the Credit Guarantee Corporation (CGC) to provide credit guarantees to enable SMEs with limited collateral and track record to have access to financing. Since its establishment in 1972, CGC has assisted more than 417,000 SMEs to obtain financing amounting to about RM50 billion. To facilitate financial institutions in their lending decisions, the Central Credit Reference Information System (CCRIS) and the Credit Bureau Malaysia were also established to gather credit history from borrowers within and beyond the regulated financial sector, respectively.
I believe this is one of the major structural reforms in the Turkish economy, especially in terms of its effects on inflation. Of course, independence is not a concept that can be achieved via the implementation of law alone. It is a concept that policy practices have a great influence upon. Dear participants, Having mentioned the two milestones in the notion of central banking, I’d now like to continue with the challenges of central banking in emerging economies combined with the Turkish experience in terms of monetary policy implementations. Although objective functions are similar in financially liberalized and well-functioning market economies, the transmission of monetary policy actions on economies certainly differs between industrialized countries and emerging market economies. Accordingly, there is a wide range of views among economists on how monetary policy decisions influence economies. If we add the uncertainties faced by the internal dynamics of emerging market economies to the picture, the impact of decisions taken by central banks might differ from one country to another both in terms of the nature and the time and even from one period of time to another for the same country. First, it is important to note that in the design and implementation of monetary policy, the understanding of structural changes is essential since the impacts of monetary policy decisions in a given economy depend on its structural changes and macroeconomic environment 2 . On the other hand, it is clear that emerging economies like Turkey are subject to structural changes more frequently than any other developed economy.