Sam Woods: Embarking on a new voyage? Solvency II in context Text of The Insurance Institute of London Lecture by Mr Sam Woods, Executive Director of Insurance Supervision of the Bank of England, at Lloyd’s of London, London, 27 January 2016. *  *  *  I am grateful to Kayleigh Guinan and Mark Cornelius for their assistance in preparing this speech. I am also grateful to Norma Cohen (Bank of England), Dr Adrian Leonard (Cambridge), Professor Philip Rawlings (Queen Mary) and Robert Thoyts (FCA) for their views and input. Good afternoon. The good ship Solvency II is now afloat. It has taken a long time to make it seaworthy. Some might question whether we need this newly improved vessel. Indeed, some might challenge whether we should have a ship at all. But that is largely academic, given we are now under way and in light of the gargantuan efforts insurance firms and regulators have put into getting us to this point. In my speech today, I would like to look at this development in the wider context of insurance history. First, I would like to offer a brief view on why, looked at through the lens of today, we regulate insurance companies at all. Second, we will take a very whirlwind tour of 5,000 years of insurance activity, for the single purpose of pointing out that for at least four-and-a-half of those five millennia there was very little regulation of insurance, if any.
Transforming our payments infrastructure  Speech given by Victoria Cleland Executive Director, Banking, Payments and Financial Resilience Payments International, London 27 November 2018  I would like to thank Sam Leighton, Richard Lewis, and Cameron Penny for their contributions. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  Transforming our payments infrastructure Payments are an essential part of our lives, and of the UK economy. Last year UK payment systems processed more than 26 billion transactions worth over £ trillion, covering everything from small scale card payments and cash withdrawals to major corporate transactions. The UK payments landscape has undergone considerable change in recent years. Increased take-up of new types of payment technology in retail and wholesale markets has been facilitated by factors including increased ease of use, the growth in e-commerce, and increased confidence in their reliability and security. Looking to the future, we expect this transformation to continue, driven by incumbents but also the growth of new Fintech firms who will continue to find innovative ways of meeting demand for faster, simpler, cheaper and more flexible payments. This wave of innovation could deliver positive outcomes ranging from better choice for consumers, to improved access to finance for businesses, to lower transaction costs, enhanced resilience and greater capital efficiency.