##a rulebook contains 638, 000 words – 77, 000 words longer than war and peace in english translation. the complexity of the language used can make the text difficult to read. another layer of complexity is added because of cross - references and links between different parts of the rulebook, requiring the reader to refer backwards and forwards, disrupting reader flow. figure 2 is a visualisation of the rulebook. each node is a part the pra rulebook. each line between the nodes is a cross - reference in the text. when parts of the rulebook are linked together, tweaking one part can have unintended consequences for others. we can quantify the interconnectedness of different parts of the rulebook using the pagerank algorithm, the same algorithm used by google ’ s search engine. a higher score implies greater connectivity of a particular part to other parts. happily, most parts of the rulebook are self - contained and ‘ ‘ structurally simple ’. ‘ looking further into the future, a bigger win might be to automate the rulebook entirely. regulated banks are required to submit large quantities of data to regulators. the cost of collecting and reporting data to meet regulatory requirements is a significant burden to both regulators and regulated firms. regulatory data collections also have significant time lag s, normally 4 to 6 weeks. one solution is to make the data reporting process better tailored to the needs of supervisors. digital regulatory reporting ( drr ) is the automation of regulatory data collection, and could potentially lead to significant improvements in both the cost and timeliness of data. the idea is based on machine readable reporting requirements that firms ’ systems could automatically interpret and satisfy via a secure regulator - firm digital link. this would allow regulators to collect data on an ad hoc basis from firms as required, in close to real time without any manual intervention at either end. that would enable amadxarif, z, brookes, j., garbarino, n., patel, r., and walczak, e ( n. d ) [ forthcoming ] all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches supervisors to specify the data they needed to solve a particular puzzle – exposures to a particular country, for example – and transmit that data request to firms in a machine readable form. the data would then be ‘ grabbed ’ directly from firms ’ systems and sent back to supervisors automatically. the fca and bank of

- out from last year ’ s financial disturbances, against the background of the longer - standing financial and economic fragility in japan - which is of course the largest economy in the asian region. the concern relates in part to the implications for global economic activity ; but it relates importantly, too, to the prospective external payments imbalances within the global economy which will need to be handled very carefully if they are not to lead to trade frictions and / or exchange rate volatility. but attention has also turned to an intensive reappraisal, in all sorts of international fora, of more effective means of preventing, and managing, such situations in the future. it would have been understandable in the light of the asian experience if there had been some turning back from the path towards greater freedom of international capital movements, and there has been some suggestion of this. but on the whole the international debate - in which central banks as well as governments are actively involved - continues to recognise the long - term benefits of free capital movements and the contribution that they can make to global economic prosperity. the mood is to continue cautiously down that path, but to emphasise the need, not only for sound macro - economic policies, which everyone accepts as a sine qua non, but also for steps to accompany capital account liberalisation designed to reduce the risks of volatility. these relate in part to the process of capital account liberalisation, where there is now a good deal more stress on ‘ sequencing ’ - that is on liberalising potentially more stable, longer - term, capital inflows initially, rather than short - term borrowing denominated in foreign currency. but they relate particularly to three key conditions for living with free capital movements. the first is “ transparency ”. in a broad sense a need for greater transparency is recognised in relation to public policy, to the relationship between the public and private sectors, to corporate governance, accounting standards, and so on. in a narrower sense there is seen to be a need for more reliable, and greater and more timely disclosure of, financial information generally, at the level of individual borrowing entities, but especially also in relation to countries ’ true foreign exchange short - term asset and liability positions. this is especially important in relation to the foreign currency liquidity position of the monetary authorities and of the banking system. the general point is that we cannot reasonably expect markets to make a proper assessment of the risks of their investments, including particularly their short - term