In 2018, an FT survey of banks around the world provided evidence of a cautious approach being taken by firms.5 And according to a McKinsey survey of financial and non-financial firms, most barriers to the more rapid adoption of AI were internal to the firms themselves: poor data accessibility; lack of suitable IMF (2019) ‘Global Financial Stability Report April 2019’ Carney, M., (2019) ‘AI and the Global Economy’ 4 IIF (2018) ‘Machine Learning in Anti-Money Laundering’ 5 FT (2018) ‘AI in banking reality behind the hype’ 2 3  3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  3  technology infrastructure; and a lack of trust in the insights of AI, for example.6 Despite the plethora of anecdotal evidence on the adoption of AI/ML, there is little structured evidence about UK financial services. To gather more evidence, the Bank of England and the FCA sent a survey in March to more than 200 firms, including the most significant banks, building societies, insurance companies and financial market infrastructure firms in the UK. This is the first systematic survey of AI/ML adoption in financial services. The survey is focused on building our understanding of key themes. First, the extent to which firms have adopted, or are intending to adopt, AI/ML within their businesses and what they regard as the most promising use cases. Second, the extent to which firms have clearly articulated strategies towards the adoption of AI/ML.
There are three key elements:  1/ A European regulation of stablecoins, as drafted by the European Commission. This socalled “MiCa” has two strengths: its rightly speaks of “Crypto-assets”, and not “Cryptocurrencies” which is a misleading expression. And on substance, the draft requires a strict and dual supervision – by national authorities and EBA – to ensure consumer protection and financial stability in a fair and consistent way within the European single market. 2/ A European acceleration on CBDC, which is not yet a decision, as published by the ECB last Friday. As a principle, central banks need to have an in-depth understanding of innovation and shouldn’t be afraid to “learn by doing”. The Banque de France is now engaging with the innovators from the private sector to conduct a program of 8 experiments on wholesale CBDC. We, the ECB and the Eurosystem, need to be ready to issue a money in digital form in case of need. Let me be clear: we cannot allow ourselves to lag behind on CBDC. That may mean that we create if necessary a retail CBDC, in order to ensure the accessibility of central bank money for the general public, in particular in countries where the use of cash in payments is declining. And it may mean also that we decide to issue a wholesale CBDC, with the aim of improving the functioning of financial markets and institutions. Within the Eurosystem, the ECB has established a high-level task force (HLTF) therefore, and just published its report.