Setting standards  Remarks given by Dave Ramsden, Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking ISO 20022 Conference, Bank of England 6 December 2018  With thanks to Carsten Jung, Amy Lee, Varun Paul, Neil Pearston, Cameron Penny, James Southgate and Tom Smith. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  Welcome all to today’s ISO 20022 conference. ISO produces a lot of standards, but it’s those related to financial messaging, and in particular payments data which is what we’re here to talk about today. I’m going to open this event by talking a little more about why the Bank, along with Pay.UK and the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), is so keen to work with the payments industry to deliver this important change to create the conditions for the next generation of innovation in UK payments and internationally. To the Bank of England, data, and the ability to collect, process and interrogate them, is vital to its ongoing ability to deliver its mission. Careful analysis of economic data is a key input into the Monetary Policy Committee’s deliberations. The Bank collects large quantities of data from the firms it supervises; that lets us understand their businesses individually and collectively, and so underpins the decisions of the Financial Policy Committee and Prudential Regulation Authority. In my own area, Markets and Banking, financial market data are crucial for calibrating and managing our own operations and risk management.
This is not just a ‘wholesale’ question of improving the efficiency, security and functionality of the huge cross border flows of transactions driven by financial globalisation: a global capital market and an integrated global financial sector. It is also increasingly a ‘retail question’ both about improving global financial inclusion and also about facilitating the increasing use of cross border retail transactions that technology has made possible. I will look briefly at each of these questions. Availability and acceptability of cash  The provision of secure physical cash is a core part of our mission. The Bank has made clear its commitment to continuing to produce cash for as long as people want to use it. Last week, we launched our new polymer £ depicting JMW Turner and containing the latest cutting-edge security features to ensure its safety and reliability. But as we have seen from other countries, and are beginning to see in the UK, the availability and acceptability of cash requires more than its physical production. Availability requires distribution by the 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  6  private sector – banks and ATM providers. The declining use of cash means loss of economies of scale. That changes the economics of such distribution. Acceptability requires not just that banks distribute and ‘bank’ cash. It also requires that merchants accept it. That depends on the all-in cost and convenience of using cash versus electronic payments.