That means building institutional frameworks that make it easier to resist as the lies regain their seductive power. If we can, we will build True Finance, an enduring platform for strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Over the past decade, great strides have been made. Let me begin with the global reforms that have addressed the third lie that “markets are moral”. In the cycle of scandal, response, integrity, drift, and new scandal, potential solutions have oscillated between the extremes of Light Touch Regulation and Total Regulation. There are problems with each. By undervaluing the importance of hard and soft infrastructure to the functioning of real markets, light touch regulation led directly to the financial crisis.19  18  The scale of misconduct impaired banks’ ability to function fairly and effectively. Global banks’ misconduct costs have exceeded $ billion, capital that could otherwise have supported around $ trillion of lending to households and businesses. More worrying still, in a system where trust is fundamental, it ought to be of grave concern that only 20% of UK citizens now think that banks are well run, compared to 90% in the 1980s. 19 “Hard infrastructure” refers to the way in which markets are organised. “Soft infrastructure” refers to the standards and norms, including regulation, market standards and codes, by which markets operate. 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  6  Market standards were poorly understood, often ignored and always lacked teeth.
Payments after the COVID crisis – emerging issues and challenges Speech given by Christina Segal-Knowles Executive Director Financial Market Infrastructure Directorate  Webinar: London School of Economics and Centre for Economic Policy Research 11 June 2020  I would like to thank Natalia Dobrovolschi, Rachel James, Cordelia Kafetz, Hardeep Rai, Josh Sadler, Jonathan Wakefield, and Ellen Caswell for their assistance with preparing this speech and Laura Wallis and Stephanie Haffner for their comments and input. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  Thanks Erik and thanks very much for inviting me to this webinar. I’ll talk through very briefly how payments were changing well before COVID-19 and the impact we’ve seen during the global health crisis. And then I’ll begin to cover what central banks can and are doing in response. Even before the current crisis, people were changing the way they pay. For many if not all of you– the fact that the way we pay has been changing significantly won’t be a surprise. You’ve experienced this. In London, where I live and work, contactless payments have become ubiquitous – from small coffee shops, to farmer’s markets, to stalls at sporting and music events, the need to rush to the cash machine is gone - you can tap your card, phone or watch. We’ve become accustomed to online baskets and clicks; to summoning and paying for services on our phone. People’s behaviour has changed.