Robust technology and strong internal controls must be in place to protect and preserve the integrity of the financial system. In line with this objective, our banking institutions have successfully replaced the magnetic stripe ATM and credit cards with chip-based cards to ensure a more secure environment for payment cards. This move has effectively eliminated counterfeiting and fraud involving ATM and credit cards in Malaysia. This has provided Malaysia with the platform to further enhance payment card services by maximising the chip infrastructure. The conclusion of this year will see the completion of the industry-wide migration to Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) standards with all of the point-of-sales terminals being fully EMV-compliant. With this, Malaysia will become the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to successfully migrate on a national scale from the magnetic stripe environment to the EMV chip-based credit card infrastructure. Ladies and Gentlemen, For Malaysia to fully adopt e-payments, the task ahead requires great determination and commitment from all sectors. From the Central Bank’s perspective, a strong motivation for promoting e-payments is in the eventual savings from the reduction of paper processing and printing, and the more efficient distribution of money in electronic form in the financial system that generates immediate economic value. Research studies have shown that shifting from an all paper-based to an electronic-based payment system will generate annual savings of about 1% of the GDP.
On this note, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have great pleasure in declaring open the Payment Systems Forum and Exhibition 2005. Thank you. BIS Review 84/2005  3