Why diverse markets need diverse talent  Opening remarks given by Andrew Hauser, Executive Director, Markets  At Next Step FX: Promoting Career Opportunities for Women in FX, London 27 June 2019  I am very grateful to Michelle Kearns for helping prepare these remarks, and to Grigoria Christodoulou, Rohan Churm, Amber Evans, Sumita Ghosh, Amy Lee and Ben Martin for their advice and comments. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  Introduction  Thank you very much for the invitation to open this event today. Promoting greater diversity in capital markets is a subject of great importance to me, to the Bank of England, and – I believe – to the continued prosperity of the financial markets and economy as a whole. Let me say why. The foreign exchange market is the nerve centre of the global financial system – settling some $ trillion of transactions every day, supporting trade, travel and investment. And its heart is here in London, which has nearly 40% of the global market. That’s a big responsibility, and one we at the Bank of England take very seriously. We are active ourselves in the market every day, buying and selling currencies on behalf of the UK Government and other central banks, and managing the UK’s foreign exchange reserves. I and my staff speak regularly to a wide range of market participants to gather insights on developments for the Bank’s monetary and financial policy committees. I chair the London Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee.

First, in 2016 the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Wells Fargo USD $ million after uncovering that employees of the bank had created millions of fraudulent customers’ bank and credit card accounts over a period of many years in order to achieve annual sales targets. Driven by poor internal controls and short-term incentive compensation programs, employees signed up new accounts without customers’ consent, moved funds from their existing accounts, and charged fees on accounts and services customers had not signed up for. According to a report by the Bureau, “more than 1.5 million bank accounts were created, of which around 85,000 accounts incurred USD $ million in fees.1” Not surprisingly, public confidence in the bank plummeted. A survey of retail banking customers conducted in late 2016 suggested that 30 percent of customers were actively exploring alternative service providers2. Second, between 2013 and 2015 many countries in our ASEAN region were affected by haze pollution caused by illegal forest fires started to clear land for pulpwood and oil palm plantations. One of the countries most severely affected was Singapore, where for consecutive days air quality deteriorated to dangerous levels, forcing closure of schools and impacting outdoor business and tourist activities. It was reported that Singapore incurred as much as SGD $ million in economic loss3. Subsequent investigation indicated that responsible parties  1 https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/092016_cfpb_WFBconsentorder.pdf 2 http://cg42.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cg42-Wells-Fargo-Mini-Study-102016vF.pdf 3  http://www.siiaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2016-04-Policy-Brief-SEA-Burning-Issue.pdf  2/7  included firms operating in Indonesia.