embracing fintech speech given by dave ramsden, deputy governor markets & banking innovate finance global summit 2019 tuesday 30 april 2019 i am grateful to amy lee, irina mnohoghitnei, tom smith and oliver thew for their assistance in preparing these remarks, and to colleagues in the fintech hub and across the bank for helpful comments and suggestions. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches introduction thank you for the opportunity to be here today and open the second day of this important global summit speaking on behalf of the bank of england, as the deputy governor with responsibility for fintech. in the past ten years, growth in the digital economy, new technologies and an increased ability to capture and analyse large amounts of data have spurred a new wave of innovation by financial institutions. and that wave of innovation will intensify in the coming years. fintech is enabling new players and business models to enter the market. this is increasing competition, helping meet unfulfilled customer needs, reducing inefficiencies and changing the way institutions provide – and consumers and businesses use – financial services. it could transform the structure of the financial sector, with implications for customers, firms and regulators. 1 given our range of responsibilities, it is essential that the bank of england keeps on top of this wave and understands and adapts to its implications. as you heard from the bank ’ s governor, mark carney, yesterday, the bank ’ s strategy is to enable innovation and empower competition, while ensuring monetary and financial stability. 2 in practice the bank is embracing fintech, and working to do as much as we can to ensure that it develops in ways that maximise the opportunities and minimise the risks for society, and that as such are entirely consistent with the defining theme of this year ’ s summit – “ the value and purpose that fintech has to society ”. the fintech hub one year on the vehicle we use to do all this is our fintech hub, which we launched one year ago. 3 this team, which grew out of our award - winning fintech accelerator, sits at the heart of the bank and leads our fintech strategy by bringing together expertise from all of bank ’ s business areas. they have engaged extensively with the fintech sector to understand developments and apply these to support the next wave of innovation in finance. examples of their work this year include : collaborating with hmt and the fca to

remarks by francois groepe, deputy governor of the south african reserve bank, at the finovate conference the westin cape town, cape town 27 november 2018 fintech : reflections on the phenomenon and its future potential good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. there is no doubt that we are facing a period of rapid technological advancement and innovative disruption, not least in the area of financial services, with financial technology ( fintech ) likely to disrupt and redefine both payments and banking value chains. given these rapid advancements of fintech, i would like to focus my remarks on two areas. the first is an appraisal, from a central banking perspective, on the fintech phenomenon, given that we as the south african reserve bank ( sarb ) have been closely observing what has been happening in this space. second, i would like to reflect on fintech ’ s potential to advance our south african migration towards a digital economy by reviewing some select examples from a few countries. i firmly believe that fintech has the potential to meaningfully contribute to the growth of our economy. page 1 of 9 fintech : 10 years on it has been 10 years since satoshi nakomoto published his famous paper titled ‘ bitcoin : a peer - to - peer electronic cash system ’. the paper was both timely and ironic, in that we had just begun to experience the impact and unintended consequences of innovation in financial services that had largely escaped the regulatory radar. over - the - counter derivatives such as credit default swaps exposed the impact of the types of innovation where there are information asymmetries, misaligned incentives and opportunistic behaviour, highlighting what can go wrong systemically when financial engineering and innovation is not subjected to appropriate regulatory oversight. the results included failure by lenders to robustly assess whether borrowers had the ability to meet their obligations. furthermore, risk transfer through the so - called originate - to - distribute models resulted in severe consequences, amplified by the interconnectedness of our financial system. yet, the solutions that are so often touted by proponents of an alternative to the ‘ traditional ’ financial system suggest that peer - to - peer exchange largely outside of the regulatory purview is the way to prevent future financial crises. so, what have we observed as central bankers as we critically reflect on what ’ s happened over the last decade? and how can these insights assist us as we move towards an efficient and safe digital economy? the three defining fin