On Dhu Al-Hijjah 22, 1437H (September 23, 2016), Saudi people celebrated the 86th national day for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on which King Abdul Aziz Bin Abdulrahman Al-Saud united this country under the banner of monotheism. Our precious Kingdom has been blessed with security and prosperity in the era of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, his honest Crown Prince and his honest Second Deputy Crown Prince.

On this day, the prosperity witnessed by this blessed country since its unification comes to mind. This prosperity has not only been limited to the establishment of the country's infrastructures, but it has also included man development. This has been attained via giving particular attention to education and health to empower every individual citizen and make him/her a strong element in a strong and cohesive society.

Considering SAMA's role and its contributions to the comprehensive development of this open-handed nation, SAMA, has continued to implement monetary policies that aim at strengthening financial stability as its strategic objectives. This has been achieved through integration among several key elements, including distinguished financial institutions, developed and secure financial payment systems and credit and financial information systems that meet the needs of various sectors of the economy.

SAMA, as a legislator and regulator of the financial sector, seeks to enhance financial inclusion initiatives and plans through incorporating the principles and strategies of consumer protection and financial inclusion into its legislations to ensure that all categories of society can obtain suitable financial services and products at appropriate, fair and transparent costs.  SAMA endeavors to achieve this through the following:

• Working towards widening the scope of financial services to cover various categories of the society all over the regions of the Kingdom through increasing the number of ATMs and points of sale terminals by 58.2 percent and 180 percent respectively during the past five years.
• Following-up the developments of the financial sector and pinpointing priorities and behaviors of beneficiaries of financial services with the aim of raising electronic financial transactions to 30 percent by 2020.
• Advancing awareness of the consumers of financial institutions via offering programs, that aim at promoting and raising the level of financial education and awareness through the role played by SAMA's Institute of Finance (IOF) in cooperation with various relevant sectors and by using media and educational channels.  The IOF holds various courses, symposiums, programs and workshops that target developing the skills of participants in the banking and financial areas.
• Developing instructions pertaining to consumer protection (e.g. the quality of service delivered).
• Ensuring that all financial sectors' under SAMA's supervision, comply with policies and controls issued by it, especially those related to determining the relationship between consumer and financial institutions.
• Receiving and considering complaints of consumers of the financial sectors, supervised by SAMA, and working to address them.
• Analyzing, classifying complaints and addressing their roots via revision of regulations and by-laws, monitoring the compliance of financial institutions, supervised by SAMA, with instructions and adopting the best approaches taken to resolving disputes, which arise between financial institutions and their customers.

In addition, SAMA aims at maintaining the stability of the real estate finance sector and enhancing its contribution to economic growth. In line with the Saudi 2030 Vision, SAMA has developed control and supervisory requirements and granted licenses to 33 companies, whose activities include finance of real estate and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This will lead to increasing the ratio of house ownership by citizens, supporting SMEs and raising the job Saudization ratio. SAMA checks finance companies' compliance with laws, regulations and instructions to enhance the stability of the financial system, fairness of dealings and beneficiary protection. SAMA works with relevant entities to develop finance system that would, hopefully, result in the establishment of a real estate re-finance company and provision of real estate products. This would, in turn, contribute to spurring growth in the real estate sector and making those products available to all elements of the society at a higher quality and competitive prices in a way that serves citizens and meets market needs.

As regards the insurance sector, SAMA strives to strengthening the stability of the insurance sector through conducting effective supervision over the sector, protecting consumers in line with Cooperative Insurance Control Law, developing customers' relationship with companies, realizing trustworthy dealings and receiving complaints and addressing them in a timely and satisfactory manner. SAMA also exerts noticeable efforts to enhance job Saudization. The ratio of Saudi employees working in the insurance sector amounted to 59 percent at the end of 2015. Despite accomplishments in this sector, SAMA still has its ambitions and aspirations in working towards stabilizing and developing the insurance sector and ensuring provision of best and state-of- the art services and products to beneficiaries.

SAMA has a vital role in creating a regulated business environment that contributes to the generation of leading financial institutions and a promising national economy. Coping with rapid progress of economic activity, SAMA has conducted a comprehensive study on the payments system in the Kingdom that resulted in formulating a Payments System Strategy for the coming years. This aims at realizing visions and aspirations for financial and monetary stability and meeting current and future domestic market needs. The strategy includes four pivots:

First: Developing the Saudi Arabian Interbank Express (SARE) and providing prepaid cards.

Second: Setting a development plan for SADAD to provide three new services: 1) Real-time secure payment service via the internet 2) expanding the number of billers 3) automated payment of business sector's bills.

 Third: Developing money transfers of low-value payments system. This pivot purports to splitting high-value money transfers from low value ones, so that they will be processed via two separate systems. This will be made through establishing a new system that will be supporting "Mada" system through which low value money transfers are processed to meet domestic market needs.

Fourth: Developing mobile payments (terminals and mobile phones). This pivot focuses on attracting and incorporating a category of society (such as, expatriates, youth and others) into the banking system to benefit from services provided by banks. It also concentrates on encouraging banks to provide banking services that uses smart phones and activating e-commerce services.

SAMA plays a positive role in spreading economic knowledge via publishing periodical reports, specialized working papers in the economic, financial and development fields. It also holds various workshops and seminars that aim at sharing viewpoints on several economic issues relevant to SAMA's work.

Finally, I would like to reassure that major accomplishments made by our country necessitate that we, all, thank Allah for such achievements and exert more efforts to protect and build upon them. I would like to commend the great efforts exerted by our military forces to protect the borders and security of this blessed country. I also pray for Allah, Almighty, that this occasion will come again and again and our country and the Arab and Islamic nations enjoy security, stability and prosperity.