It is not a coincidence that PIA Bank is at the juncture of so many reforms in banking and that it is prepared to face these reforms. The bank was first conceived in 1989. After ten years of research and participation in World Bank dialogues, in 1999, both the 'strangelet' atomic interferometry project and PIA Bank were set in motion.

I went to France where I learned the principle of European Banking through my interaction with a major French Bank and the Research Center for the Côte d'Azur. I learned the terminology and the principles involved in establishing a European company and then later in Luxembourg and Switzerland learned how to change the holding company into a Bank/Holding. By this time, November 2001, we were starting to receive requests for deposits which were preserved until preparations were complete.

We accumulated, with no public exposure nor knowledge of our existence, US$100 million in deposits from recommendations from embassies. The embassies were probably aware of my previous history at the United Nations and of the hundreds of references to my position on emerging nations and employment. In this context, we have a long history in the environmental field dating back to the first Earth Day.

At the same time, the history of our activities in Eastern Europe and support of the micro-economy were well documented in publications. Another aspect of this insight into the micro-economy is our support of science in Africa accepted on an equal footing with the first world. This is also true of China and India and those two countries one might point to many instances where their science and business acumen surpasses the West. At present, we are testing the configuration of the bank.

My colleagues were all bankers with corporate and central bank experience of many years. Our Luxemburg legal counsel brings the added skills of an outstanding record in international property rights. Our Luxemburg legal counsel has the outstanding distinction of having been involved in the magnetic rail technology patent and patents for other cutting edge technologies. Other colleagues have an expertise in both British banking where he was a bank director and in the Caribbean where he was instrumental in programs of development and energy preservation. France has provided us with highly skilled candidates for both our bankiug and technological positions, all with a minimum of ten years experience and we are in the process of hiring an Austrian internet technician to maintain our websites and our capital tracking system. The overall aspect of the bank is, for the above reasons, one of excellence and expertise. Our model for the bank is clearly the Swiss Model, but we have profited enormously from insights into the British and French systems as well. During the period from 2002-2003, we established our funds and investment programs which can be seen in our brochures.