Broader access: The Bank wishes to promote membership of RTGS and has made steps towards this by extending direct access to RTGS accounts for non-bank Payment Service Providers (PSPs). We will also continue to focus on streamlining the onboarding and testing regimes for direct members. Wider interoperability: We will promote ways in which users can reroute payments especially if outages occur. This will reduce the risk of downtime and help to keep the economy moving. Implementation of the ISO 20022 Common Credit Message (CCM) across CHAPS, Bacs and FPS will aide in this. Improved user functionality: The new system will be designed to better support the needs of users, for example enhanced liquidity management. And we will also look to extend opening hours. Strengthened end-to-end risk management: A more robust system with greater oversight and governance from the Bank of England has been introduced since the operation of CHAPS was brought in-house in November 2017. The Bank now has responsibility for system-wide risk management, including relationships with participants, and clearer lines of responsibility and integrated governance will help to reduce further the risks in the High-Value Payment System (HVPS).
The baht has been depreciating since late April, reducing the year-to-date appreciation against the dollar to about 3 percent. The correction is also evidence that under flexible exchange rate regime, unwarranted overshooting inevitably will be corrected by market forces. The fact is that although the exchange rate is not the BOT’s main policy tool, or an intermediate policy target, it is an integral part of our macroeconomic analysis and policy deliberation. Beyond aggregate statistics, it is also recognized that sharp exchange rate volatility can have significant impact on small businesses with less capacity to adjust. Thus, while exchange rate is allowed to play an active automatic stabilizing role under current framework, the MPC constantly monitors the impact of baht movements on the overall economy. To supplement this baseline analysis, the BOT staff also conducts projections under different degrees of baht appreciation. In a recent joint forecast exercise with the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB), the BOT’s estimate of growth impact of baht appreciation in fact proved to be the largest among the three, testifying to our conservatism. In broad terms, however, the three agencies’ analyses agree that baht appreciation alone should not derail the underlying momentum of the economy. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  The MPC continues to be prudent, and vigilant about the potential adverse impact of extreme exchange rate volatility.