stability is no less important if trade is to prosper. in the importance of being earnest, cecily is instructed by her tutor, miss prism, to read her political economy. but miss prism continued, “ the chapter on the fall of the rupee you may omit. it is somewhat too sensational. even these metallic problems have their melodramatic side. ” what would poor cecily have made of the recent melodrama surrounding the values of the dollar, the euro and other paper currencies? it is clear that the aim of central banks to make monetary policy less exciting and more boring needs to be complemented by a collective effort to bring boredom to the international monetary stage. over the past year, senior policymakers from within the g - 7 are reported to have claimed that “ it ’ s awfully important that the euro zone adopt policies that will allow them to grow faster. their slow growth is hurting our growth ” ( john snow, afx news 24 / 03 / 04 ), and that “ our american friends need to put in place a determined policy to control their deficits and so that their currency does not distort commercial trade ” ( nicolas sarkozy, afx news 25 / 11 / 04 ), or indeed that china ’ s exchange rate policy “ has become a destabilizing force in the world economy, has led to major international exchange rate and trade imbalances throughout the world ” ( open letter from us senators schumer, bunning, durbin, graham, dodd and bayh to vice president richard cheney, 22 / 01 / 04 ).

new way to pay for goods and services or make peer - to - peer transactions. many propose to integrate into popular social media or online technology platforms. with this backdrop and an estimated 3 billion social media users worldwide, it ’ s not hard to imagine that some of these proposals could quickly reach significant scale. including open banking reforms in the eu and the introduction of a payments competition regulator in the uk. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches but of course innovation won ’ t be sustained if it ’ s unsafe or detrimental for financial stability. clear, transparent regulatory expectations are critical to ensure that uncertain rules of the game don ’ t hold innovation back. this poses several challenges for regulators – i ’ m going to focus on the two that are most important for financial stability. we need payments to be secure and reliable. problem 1 for central banks is that robust and reliable ways to pay are essential to financial stability. well - functioning and resilient payment chains allow payments to be made on time, with confidence, even in periods of economic uncertainty. think – receipt of your salary, benefits and pensions, direct debit bill payments ability to tap and ride the tube home or leave the restaurant after a meal. the reliability and resilience of payments is so important to our economy that the uk financial policy committee, tasked with identifying, monitoring and reducing systemic risks, lists avoiding serious interruptions in the provision of payment and settlement services as one of the very purposes of preserving financial stability. if a stablecoin were to significantly replace current systemic payments chains as a way to pay – logic follows that they would pose the same risks to the economy as current payments chains and should be regulated to the same standards. this is relatively straightforward : regulation should be technology neutral : based on the activity conducted and the risks posed, not the technology used or the entity ’ s legal form. in other words, same risks same regulation. in the uk, recognising the importance of payments for financial stability, the bank of england supervises systemic payments systems such as bacs, the faster payments service, chaps, and visa. and internationally, there are principles – the principles for financial market infrastructure – which benoit helped to create when he was at the helm of the committee for payments and market infrastructure - that govern how payments systems should be regulated and the standards they should meet. these standards form the basis of the boe ’ s regulation. all speeches are