Opening Remarks BOT’s Policy Direction on FinTech Development Bangkok FinTech Fair 2018: SME and Consumer Financial Solutions Dr. Veerathai Santiprabhob Governor of the Bank of Thailand Monday 19 March 2018 Bank of Thailand Learning Center  Distinguished guests Ladies and gentlemen Swasdee krub, A very good morning to you all. Welcome to the inaugural Bangkok FinTech Fair and welcome to the Bank of Thailand Learning Center. This Learning Center was first opened to the public in December of last year. It is not only Bangkok’s newest learning center and public library but also an open space for individuals and entrepreneurs to collaborate and exchange ideas. So, it is fitting that our very first Bangkok FinTech Fair is held at this venue. Over the next two days, we will be joined by some of the top minds from Thailand’s fintech and financial industry as well as regional and global leaders in financial innovation. The main discussion panels will present various issues surrounding fintech ecosystem with the focus on SME financial solutions, retail payments, and technology infrastructure; the cybersecurity room, which is in the library, will underscore the importance of cyber-awareness and highlight key security issues, ranging from emerging threats to defensive strategies; and the technology talk room and various presentation booths all over the venue will showcase some of the latest technologies and initiatives Thailand’s fintech and financial industries are working on. 1-7  Ladies and gentlemen, On the program, this morning I am supposed to talk about Bank of Thailand’s policy direction on fintech development.
[11]  The upshot is that more firms have been protected and more jobs have been saved. Without the ECB’s policies, we estimate that over one million more people would have lost their jobs. [12]  But we are not out of the woods yet. With the tremendous progress made on vaccine technology, we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. But we still cannot see exactly how long that tunnel is. We will continue to face a period of high uncertainty until more people have been vaccinated against the virus. In this setting, it is crucial that the bridge for SMEs remains in place for as long as needed. The ECB will help ensure that firms and families can access the finance they need to weather this storm – and that they can do so in the confidence that financing conditions will not tighten prematurely. That commitment is the best way to provide certainty to all sectors of the economy and to bring stability back to the euro area swiftly. And this, in turn, is the best contribution we can make to delivering on our mandate of price stability. 5/8  As Goethe said, “Im Idealen kommt alles auf die élans, im Realen auf die Beharrlichkeit an.”[13] Reality is currently hard for many firms and the future remains uncertain. And so we will persist and persevere until the pandemic emergency has passed.