been the fxjsc playing a central role in ensuring the fx market remained fair, and resilient throughout these changes. i want to thank you all for your joining us today to mark this important milestone, and for your continuing work to develop the fx market further. we will now we reflect on the work of the fxjsc over the last 50 years, and have a panel discussion on what the next 50 years might hold for us. i am grateful to laura austin and andrew hauser for co - authoring these remarks, and to andrew butcher, matthew conway, matthew dove, sumita ghosh, joe hearn, alice hobday, zish jooma, philippe lintern, natalie lovell, sita mistry, carolyn shen, nicole webster and jack worlidge for all of their work in organising the event to mark the 50th anniversary of the fxjsc. 1. more detail on the early years of the fxjsc itself is available here : speech by paul fisher - 4th annual foreign exchange markets summit 19th january 2004 ( bankofengland. co. uk ) 2. https : / / www. elibrary. imf. org / downloadpdf / book / 9798400235269 / 9798400235269. xml 3. meeting varied people - speech by andrew bailey | bank of england 4. for a discussion of these issues, see : run lola run! the good, the bad and the ugly of fx market fragmentation – and what to do about it : speech by andrew hauser at tradetech fx 2019, barcelona 5. as described in seven moments in spring : covid - 19, financial markets and the bank of england's operations speech by andrew hauser | bank of england 6. fca recognises the revised fx global code and the precious metals code | bank of england 7. global index of public registers ( globalfxc. org ) andrew bailey governor, bank of england ©2023 bank of england

the subsequent weakening of the euro since the beginning of last year has not made things any easier for us. just as, i suggested earlier, the euro is substantially undervalued in terms of the medium - term “ fundamentals ”, so in the same terms sterling is on most calculations substantially overvalued against the euro. to lower sterling to a more sustainable level in present conditions would again require an easing of monetary policy which would destabilise our overall domestic economy ; and this in turn would tend to set in train a process that would lock in a subsequent real uk exchange rate appreciation within the eurozone ( albeit from an initially less uncompetitive level ). that might help reduce sectoral imbalances in the short term, only for them to re - emerge. and in the meantime the whole of the economy would have been exposed to accelerating inflation, which we would be powerless to address through national monetary policy. frankly it is not clear to me that this is a risk which it would be in the interests of either the uk or the eurozone to take in today ’ s conditions. for the time being our best bet, it seems to me, is for both the eurozone and the uk to continue to pursue macro - economic - both fiscal and monetary - stability in parallel, and to hope that the euro recovers, as i continue to expect that it will. that strikes me as a more reliable path to the sustainable convergence which the british government has set as the essential economic criterion on which its decision to move ahead to a referendum on uk entry to the euro will be based.