to firm types. we have worked hard, including through the meeting varied people initiative launched in 2021 [ 3 ], to broaden individual representation on the committee, and our market intelligence network, to ensure we benefit from the widest possible range of views and input. just as the customer base has broadened, the technology used to service it has fundamentally changed. the early minutes of the fxjsc are dominated by descriptions of detailed disputes that could only arise in a voice - execution market. however sophisticated chatgpt and the like may become, i am doubtful they could ever disentangle the misunderstandings of that era! at the same time, few members of the 1970s committees could have foreseen how the market would be revolutionised by the technology to come – from the early reuters terminals via the introduction of the internet, to today ’ s world of algorithms and vast automated market - making systems marshalling petabytes of data. today ’ s market structures have the capacity to meet consumer needs in ways undreamt of decades ago. but such decentralisation, dare i say fragmentation, also poses daunting challenges for the unwary, in terms of understanding where they can find the best liquidity, and on what terms. as the market structure gets more complex, transparency has never been more important. [ 4 ] part of the answer here lies in centralised data gathering : the fxjsc itself took an early initiative in the late 1980s to develop the first london market - wide survey, later globalised via the bis. bespoke technologies, including transaction cost analysis ( tca ) tools can also help. but this is an area that will need ongoing attention if we are to reap the potential gains from technological advances of recent years. the evolving toolkit for maintaining safety, soundness and financial stability my final theme relates to how central banks should think about the relationship between fx markets and financial stability. that relationship is not one - way of course : exchange rates, particularly floating ones, can be important buffers against unanticipated shocks, allowing economies to adjust without more painful corrections in less flexible domestic prices. but fx markets can still dry up in stress periods, particularly in the presence of material imbalances in currency demand. that is why the major central banks established a permanent network of standing swap lines in the wake of the global financial crisis. those swap lines proved vital in our fight against the global ‘ dash for cash ’ following the covid lock

of market participants, and the trading and settlement technologies they use ; and the evolving toolkit needed to maintain safety, soundness and financial stability. the role of currencies in macroeconomic frameworks the fxjsc was forged against the backdrop of the collapse of the bretton woods system, in which the major currencies fixed to the dollar, which in turn fixed to gold. the system operated effectively for a quarter century after world war 2, but ballooning deficit spending to fund the vietnam war made defence of the gold peg increasingly untenable for the us authorities. in august 1971, president nixon unilaterally suspended convertibility. heroic efforts to recalibrate the system, via the smithsonian agreement, were abandoned by spring 1973. it is sometimes said that 1973 was the beginning of the ‘ free floating currency ’ era – and certainly many countries headed in that direction, albeit the route was often indirect. here in the uk, we retained extensive capital controls from 1973 to 1979, including during the sterling crisis of 1976. in the late 1980s and early 1990s we informally, and then formally, shadowed european currencies. since exiting the exchange rate mechanism ( erm ) in september 1992, we have embraced a free float. table 1 : exchange rate arrangements ( % of imf membership, april 2022 ) source : international monetary fund others have taken equally circuitous routes. industrialised countries came together to lean against the level of the dollar twice in the 1980s – first, via the plaza accord in 1985, the year i joined the bank of england, in an attempt to bear down on the 44 % appreciation in the previous five years ; and then, via the 1987 louvre accord, to do the reverse. the 1990s saw a concerted push by many continental european countries to fix their bilateral exchange rates, first through the erm and later through the formation of the euro. but the majority, indeed fully two thirds of countries, still operate today some form of hard or soft peg, often against the dollar ( table 1 ). the changing shape of market participants and technology a second key theme is the changing shape of fx market participants, and the technology that serves them. looking back at the early fxjsc minutes, committee membership was limited exclusively to banks and brokers. fast forward to 2023, we now have representation from infrastructure providers, the buyside, non - bank liquidity providers ( an unheard of concept in 1973 ) and the corporate sector. diversity is not limited