to make this happen through the careful design of a cbdc to ensure it promotes stability and good economic outcomes. design questions are critical. for example, who would be able to access cbdc directly? would it be mainly a payments device and a cash like instrument? or would it be able to serve as a mainstream vehicle for savings and store of value? would it be remunerated or not and how appealing should any remuneration be versus commercial bank money held on deposit accounts? would we apply limits or restrictions on its use to control demand in normal times or in stress? how and to what extent should data and privacy be protected? and crucially, running though all of these design questions of the question where the public / private boundary lie ; which functions and services should be provided by the central bank and which by the private sector? these are profound questions and choices that would inform any decision to launch a cbdc. we certainly do not have the answers today. we should however recognise a couple of realities. first, that the form of money has always been evolving and that technology and consequent changes in the way we want to live and transact with each other are now driving rapid change in money and payments. we cannot hold that back. we need to think about and debate these issues now. and in thinking about cbdc, we should think about the role it could play in the future and how money and payments might evolve in its absence. second, changes in the form of money have implications that go wider than finance and economics. we should recognise there are questions about privacy, competition, inclusion, the role of the public sector and other broader societal issues. these will require the engagement of the political authorities and will need broader debate. it is, therefore, and once again, time for us to talk about money. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches chart 1 : cash as a share of transactions money source : bank of england, and thomas, r and dimsdale, n ( 2017 ) " a millennium of uk macroeconomic data ", bank of england obra dataset : https : / / www. bankofengland. co. uk / - / media / boe / files / statistics / research - datasets / a - millennium - of - macroeconomic - data - for - the - uk. xlsx total transactions money is defined as the sum of notes and coin held by the

, and one that will enable and encourage innovation and competition including instant payment at the point of sale. innovation and competition can lead to better, cheaper, payments services in the economy. but, the payment systems on which we depend have to be reliable and robust, prudentially and operationally. regulation, therefore needs to keep pace with the changes in the payments landscape and the proliferation of new actors. the same risks have to be subject to the same regulation. the current regulatory regime focusses on the banks and core payment systems that have traditionally performed most of the functions, the ‘ chain of actions ’, involved in making transactions. but as innovation and competition lengthen that chain of action and introduce more actors into it, the current regulatory framework does not capture the full ‘ end to end ’ risks in the chain. as a result, the financial policy committee of the bank of england has recommended to the treasury ’ s payments review that the regulation and supervision of systemic payments systems should reflect the financial stability risk, rather than the legal form, of payments activities and ensure end - to - end operational and financial resilience across payment chains. 12 similar changes are happening in other countries, both advanced and emerging economies. 13 see https : / / www. bankofengland. co. uk / - / media / boe / files / financial - policy - summary - and - record / 2019 / october - 2019. pdf the committee on payments and market infrastructure reports there are 45 jurisdictions now “ live ” with fast payment services, and know of 12 jurisdictions planning to introduce fast payment services in the future. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches and central banks and others are working through the bis committee on payments and financial market infrastructure and the financial stability board to produce, for the g20, proposals to improve the coverage, efficiency and reliability of current systems for cross border payments. crypto assets and stablecoins it is important to emphasise that the developments we have seen in electronic payment systems we use over the last 50 years have been innovations in the transfer of commercial bank money – the claims we hold on licenced, deposit taking commercial banks – to make transactions. while the technology has changed beyond all recognition, all of these systems are economically the equivalent of 18th century bank clerks with quill pens altering their banks ’ ledgers to debit one account and credit another whilst addressing shortcomings. some of the most high - profile