never taken place virtually in the more than 20 years prior to march. mpc deliberations have been no less effective, and mpc decisions no less expeditious, for this shift. what virtual meetings risk losing, however, is the capacity to explore uncharted territory, to share tacit knowledge and personal information. those informal between - meetings conversations are, in my experience, the bedrock of relationship - building and the key to trust – building. it is the loss of those informal opezzo and schwartz ( 2014 ). barrero et al ( 2020b ). all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches and @ boe _ pressoffice moments that has resulted in many of us running down our past stock of social capital for the past six months. this cannot be done indefinitely. i always knew that i picked up a lot of information from the unscheduled time between meetings, when informal and sometimes chance conversations take place. having now lived without them for 6 months, i now realise these informal non - meetings were often my main source of information. the informal chat in the 5 minute walk from the lift to my office often contained more useful knowledge than the subsequent one - hour meeting in my office. the other week i spoke to the bank ’ s new crop of graduates. when i was in their shoes, almost all of my knowledge came from informal conversations in the pub with my graduate cohort on their jobs, bosses and experiences, rather than from listening to talking heads like me. this year all of that is lost and, with it, a significant down - payment of social capital. those losses are being replicated among organisations right around the world. this social capital, once lost, will be difficult to reacquire. whether it is creative sparks being dampened, existing social capital being depleted or new social capital being lost, these are real costs and costs which would be expected to grow, silently but steadily, over time. they weigh on the other side of the ledger when it comes to assessing the case for home - working. they cast doubt on whether it will lead to the promised land of improved productivity and greater happiness. if you asked me if i am happier working from home, i genuinely would not know. i do not miss the commute. but i feel acutely the loss of working relationships and external stimuli – the chance conversations, listening to very different people with very different lived

cross - border payments – innovating in a changing world speech given by victoria cleland, executive director, banking, payments and innovation central bank payments conference 13 october 2020 i would like to thank michael pywell, michaela costello, laurie roberts and cameron brooks for their assistance in preparing this speech. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches and @ boe _ pressoffice introduction i was delighted to be invited to speak at this event, during such an exciting time in central banking and the payments industry. i am sorry that we are unable to all meet face to face, not least as it was originally hoped for this conference to take place in athens. i cannot offer you the greek sunshine, but i would like to introduce some greek philosophy to get us started. plato taught us that ‘ necessity is the mother of invention ’ - this year ’ s virtual conference is a great example of that. so thank you to jean - michel and the team for their flexibility and ingenuity in holding this conference during such challenging times. and necessity and invention are at the heart of payments too. every one of us needs to make payments. while the medium of exchange might have undergone considerable invention and innovation since plato ’ s day, the importance of being able to exchange money safely and efficiently has not. the agenda for this conference – covering topics such as cyber security, artificial intelligence and digital currencies - gives an insight into the scale and pace of innovative thinking currently taking place in the payments industry. innovation is at the heart of the topic i will be focusing on today – cross - border payments. i will cover why greater innovation is needed in cross - border payments and outline the g20 initiative to develop a roadmap for action. i will then seek to bring it to life by outlining some of the key developments already underway at the bank of england to support the international agenda in this area. cross - border payments lag behind over the last decade or so, there has been a strong focus on further enhancing domestic payments with a significant increase in instant payments and great innovation at the customer - facing end. just consider our ability to pay for goods and services not just with cards and phones but also with watches and smart speakers. there is also a move to enhance the core underlying infrastructure. in the uk, the bank of england is renewing its real time gross settlement service and pay. uk is developing a new payments architecture for retail