These possibilities are why the Bank has already taken a number of steps to encourage FinTech’s development. 4  For a summary of the new regulatory arrangements see “Changes to the Bank of England”, Murphy, E. and Senior, S, Quarterly Bulletin Article (Q1 2013). 3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  3  The PRA and the FCA have changed their authorisation processes to support new business models. The New Bank Start-Up Unit, created in 2016, works closely with firms seeking to become banks. Already, four new ‘mobile’ banks have been authorised. 5  The Bank also established a FinTech Accelerator last year. Since then, we have worked with a number of firms on proofs of concept ranging from strengthening our cyber security to using AI for regulatory data, and improving our understanding of distributed ledgers. Today we are opening our 4th round of applications to the Accelerator. We are looking to work on new proofs of concept on maintaining privacy in a distributed ledger and applying a range of big data tools to support the Bank’s analysis. 6  More broadly, the Bank is working to ensure that this time the right hard and soft infrastructure are in place to allow innovation to thrive while keeping the system safe. Let me expand briefly with three examples. The Right Soft Infrastructure First, with respect to soft infrastructure, the Bank is assessing how FinTech could change risks and opportunities along the financial services value chain.
Fiscal policies might play a bigger stabilisation role without neglecting the constraints associated with current high debt levels and the implications of demographic changes for the public budget. In both cases, structural policies to expand productivity growth will ease the difficulties associated with the fulfilment by both monetary and fiscal authorities of their stabilisation functions. Macroprudential policies can also be used as additional macroeconomic stabilisation mechanisms, in addition to their role in guaranteeing financial stability. And all of this will have to be achieved while keeping a close eye on financial developments and innovations that will have to meet new demands, mainly to do with the insurance of the longevity risk in an ageing, lowinterest-rate world. 16