13 As noted in the Minutes of the February 2021 MPC meeting. 14 The Bank set out some initial thinking on this in a March 2020 Discussion Paper, and together with six other central banks and the Bank for International Settlements published a report in October 2020 identifying the foundational principles necessary for any publicly available CBDCs to help central banks meet their public policy objectives. 10 11 12  6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  6    Central banks including the Bank of England are considering what contribution they can make, consistent with their remits, to encourage an earlier and more orderly transition to a carbon-neutral economy. QE as a monetary policy tool I will say more about QE and climate change as part of the potential “future normal” towards the end of my lecture but for now I want to focus on QE in the context of the here and now. The fact that QE only came into use in the UK in March 2009 means that in practice its history, at least in the UK, is a short one. As Figure 2 illustrates, it has been used essentially five times in twelve years. QE1, 2 and 3 came in response to the financial crisis and the euro area crisis that followed; QE4 followed the Brexit referendum; and QE5, which is still ongoing, formed part of the policy response to the Covid crisis last March.
And the threat posed by climate change means we need to give serious consideration to the resilience of our physical and digital infrastructure. The New York Fed has the appearance of an historic institution, but behind the stone façade 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  we’re grappling with these issues in the same way that you are. In our economic research, our supervision of financial institutions, the payments systems we operate, in short – in all that we do. Talent, technology, and innovation challenge us every day. They create incredible opportunity, but they also test us by exposing new vulnerabilities. I know that over the next couple of days there will be lots of valuable insights shared by experts about how to handle the challenges posed by big data, cryptocurrency, and climate change. But first, to kick off the conference, it’s my pleasure to introduce John Dugan, Chair of Citigroup. Citigroup has operations in over 150 countries, with about 200 million customer accounts worldwide.2 As head of a global employer with complex, international operations, John is no stranger to the changing nature of risk. John became Chair of Citigroup at the start of this year. Prior to that he was chair of the Financial Institutions Group at the law firm Covington & Burling LLP, where he spent much of his career. He has also held a number of public sector roles, including Comptroller of the Currency during a critical time for our financial system and economy, from 2005–2010.