3. Evaluation of the Project 3.1 Relevance Following the first project of CBM, the number of bank accounts grew by more than 10% per year along with economic development in Myanmar, and financial transactions are rapidly increasing and becoming more diversified, as seen in the introduction to mobile banking services, etc. Against this backdrop, the need for enhanced functionality of CBM-NET is increasing, such as improvement of settlements by direct connections between CBM-NET and each commercial banking system, as well as the liquidity saving function, and handling point-in-time settlements to respond to the needs for small-lot transfers by mobile banking and internet banking. Also, it is necessary to promote responses to international trends in Myanmar, such as ISO 20022, the international standard for financial service transactions, and the principle for financial market infrastructure (PFMI). With an aim to facilitate financial transactions, what the Myanmar government positions as important initiatives are to respond to increasing and diversifying financial transactions by expanding the function of the Myanmar Central Bank's funds and securities settlement system, and to comply with international standards. In the policies for economic cooperation to Myanmar enacted in April 2012, Japan considers support for improving the capacity of human resources supporting the economy and society, and for establishing institutions as one of the priority areas. Also, in the Japan-Myanmar Cooperation Program announced in November 2016, financial system development support is listed as one of the nine pillars. This project is consistent with these policies and will contribute to the stabilization and facilitation of the financial transaction in Myanmar by expanding the settlement system of the central bank of Myanmar, and it is highly likely that the grant aid will support this project. 3.2 Effectiveness (1) Expected Effects The effects to be brought by the second project are as follows:  Transactions between FIs become more active.  CBS implementation in Myanmar FIs will increase and networking of vii