1  https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2019/victoria-cleland-national-inclusion-week-launch-event-at-house-of-lords https://files.londonandpartners.com/business/resources/london-fintech-scene-2017.pdf 3 https://www.innovatefinance.com/news/uk-fintech-investment-flying-high-in-h1-2019/ 4 https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/Summary-UK-Payment-Markets-2018.pdf 5 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/report/2019/future-of-finance 2  2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  2  Today, I will focus on how the Bank will support a more resilient, innovative and competitive payments system for UK households and businesses: we have a vision that payments will become cheaper, instantaneous and more seamless, including across borders. At the heart of this is the UK’s Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service which settles around £ of payments each working day, close to a third of the UK’s annual GDP. Not much business can be done without it, and most consumers are ultimately reliant on it. I will tell you shortly about our leading-edge work to renew this service, but this is not all we are doing. We are also pursuing a number of even more far-reaching strands which together have the potential to transform the current payments landscape. I want to share a few of these with you today. First, cross border payment is for many a long standing frustration - often badged as slow; inefficient and expensive for both financial institutions and end users. In 2018 we published a summary of our joint collaboration with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of Canada to explore opportunities to make cross-border payments more efficient. But we want to take this further and play a leading role in supporting effective change in this area.

A recent large-scale study of some 6,000 corporate disclosures found that firms that published data on their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance received cheaper debt funding, with environmental disclosures having the largest effect.12 And increasingly that message is getting across: three-quarters of UK board members believe structured disclosure along the lines of that recommended by the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) will increase brand value, nearly half expect improved alignment with shareholder priorities, and a third already see tangible financial benefits.13 Table 1: Potential economic benefits of disclosing climate metrics (and costs of not)  Potential issuer benefits  Potential issuer costs from  from disclosing  not disclosing  Improved rating  Worse rating  risk premium  Higher asset valuations  Lower asset valuations  Financing  Size of investor  Access to more investors  Shrinking investor base  terms and  base  Credit rating Lower uncertainty  asset valuations  More expensive finance as Financing rate  Cheaper finance  raters/investors apply a risk premium  Fixed cost of  Lower cost of engaging  Confusion drives increasing  investor  with investors  costs of investor engagement  engagement 12 13  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335016621_ESG_practices_and_the_cost_of_debt_Evidence_from_EU_countries https://www.carbontrust.com/news-and-events/news/two-thirds-of-major-uk-companies-to-incorporate-climate-change-risks-and 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  6  Management of  Improved understanding  Weaker awareness internally  own risks  and ability to manage risks  and externally  Retail consumer  Improved brand image and  Customer boycotts harm firms’  Business  expectations /  hence demand / revenues  positions in contested markets  management  demand Supply chain  Awarded more contracts  Cut out of contracts from firms  expectations /  from firms seeking lower  seeking lower ‘Scope 3’ scores  demand  ‘Scope 3’ scores14  Human resources  Attracting, motivating, and  Challenges in hiring and  retaining staff  retaining key staff  Clean regulatory record  Fines and infractions  Regulation  Regulatory compliance  That’s all very well for firms with a good story to tell – but doesn’t it still pay laggards to stay silent?