This diversification is bringing about an “unbundling” of financial activity – that is to say, breaking the financial services activity and value chain into its component pieces. The shift towards digital payments can enable competition and ultimately benefit consumers, and the Bank, given its role at the heart of the financial system, is in a unique position to support that. As the Governor said yesterday, this includes updating our own hard and soft infrastructure to provide a platform for private innovation to serve the digital economy. I’ll give three examples of what this means in practice. First, the Bank is renewing its Real Time Gross Settlement service (RTGS), the UK’s core payments infrastructure – Victoria Cleland, our Executive Director for Banking, Payments and Innovation, spoke about this at a roundtable discussion here yesterday. Our goal is to deliver a materially stronger, more resilient, flexible and innovative sterling settlement system, with the ability to support a diverse range of payment technologies such as those built on distributed ledger technology. 9  6  This project, led by Huw van Steenis, is looking at how financial services might evolve over the next decade, and what this means for individuals, businesses and financial service providers. For more information see the project webpage at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/research/future-finance. 7 For more detail on the work of the Fintech Hub, see the article “Embracing the promise of fintech” in the Bank’s Q1 Quarterly Bulletin, available at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2019/embracing-the-promise-of-fintech. 8 See WorldPay’s Global Guide to Alternative Payments, available at http://offers.worldpayglobal.com/rs/worldpay/images/worldpayalternative-payments-2nd-edition-report.pdf. 9 See https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2018/march/rtgs-renewal-proof-of-concept and https://www.bankofengland.co.uk//media/boe/files/payments/a-blueprint-for-a-new-rtgs-service-for-the-uk.
3 I set out our ambitions for the Fintech Hub in my speech “Open to Fintech”, available at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2018/dave-ramsden-speech-hmts-international-fintech-conference. 4 See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cryptoassets-taskforce 5 See https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2018/november/boe-boc-mas-joint-report-digital-transformation-in-cross-border-payments 1  2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  2  financial services might evolve over the next decade as part of the Bank’s Future of Finance project6; and analysing everything from the potential role of BigTechs in financial services to the implications of Open Banking and PSD2. But instead of looking back, I want to stay faithful to the spirit of today’s session and look forward to the contributions the Bank can make to the future of finance. Fintech is one of the Bank’s seven strategic priorities for 2019. In particular I’ll discuss three key areas of Fintech Hub focus in 2019: payments; unbundling; and artificial intelligence.7  Payments The first area I’ll focus on is payments. While the Bank is not nearly as old as the Guildhall, this year we are celebrating 325 years as the UK’s central bank; that includes 325 years of providing foundational payments services. Payments have become increasingly digital in recent years, and there are now hundreds of alternative payment methods8 available; recent years have seen a significant diversification of payment companies with new entrants to the market, such as e-money institutions and technology companies – which is why the subject is of interest to the Fintech Hub.