Let me discuss each in 9  turn . Distributed ledger technology (DLT) (3 PoCs)  DLT has in many respects been the poster-child for FinTech. Thrown into prominence by the advent of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the attraction of DLT to central banks really lies in the potentially highly attractive resilience characteristics of the underlying technology. In its purest form, a DLT network operates with no centre, and every node in the network holds a full copy of the ledger. So the failure of a node has no impact on the overall resilience of the system, with transactions simply rerouting elsewhere. A single ledger could also eliminate the need for costly reconciliations between market participants, increasing efficiency and reducing operational risk. For central banks currently operating centralised payments and settlements systems with only limited redundancy and facing growing cyber and operational threats, such a model has obvious attractions. Our first DLT PoC, undertaken with PwC, proved it was possible to build a multi-node scalable DLT environment enabling the transfer of ownership of a fictitious asset. But it also demonstrated that the technology was some way from being sufficiently robust or scaleable to form the core of live central bank infrastructure such as the Bank’s Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service – a conclusion that helped inform the Bank’s plans for its RTGS renewal programme. PoCs by other central banks have reached 10  broadly similar conclusions . 9  More detailed write-ups of completed PoCs can be found at: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/Pages/fintech/default.aspx.

And the results and key findings are published on the Bank’s web pages, and factored 7  See for instance Ian Hathaway’s Brookings study of accelerator performance at https://www.brookings.edu/research/acceleratinggrowth-startup-accelerator-programs-in-the-united-states/. 8 Framework adapted from Susan Cohen ‘What Do Accelerators Do? – Insights from Incubators and Angels’ innovations’ (Innovations, volume 8, number 3/4, MIT Press). 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  into the Bank’s future work programme. Firms we have worked with have been invited to join the Bank’s FinTech community, which meets periodically to share insights and assess developments in the sector. The Bank’s FinTech Accelerator: what have we done? The Accelerator has done quite a lot in a short time. In the 16 months since the Accelerator was established, it has completed 9 PoCs with 10 firms across three cohorts (Table 2). And we are announcing a further cohort of 4 PoCs today – the details of which I will come back to shortly. In total, some 200 firms have applied to work with us across a wide range of disciplines. The process is resource intensive for both sides. But our broader interactions with those firms, even those not successful in their application, have been of great value, allowing us to reach a much wider external audience keen to interact, collaborate, teach and learn with us. The PoCs span most aspects of central banking, but can be grouped together into four broad technologies: distributed ledgers; data storage and analysis; machine learning; and cyber security.