But alongside low inflation we’ve had the lowest nominal interest rates that most of us can remember. Short-term rates have averaged some 6¼% compared with some 11¼% over the preceding decade. And 10-year government bond yields have fallen, with inflationary expectations, to around 5¼% which apart from a brief period last year is the lowest they’ve been for nearly 40 years. Much more fundamentally we’ve enjoyed the longest period of uninterrupted, quarter by quarter, economic growth since records began some 45 years ago - with annual growth averaging 2.8% - between ¼ and ½% above most estimates of our underlying trend rate. The number of people in employment is the highest on record. And unemployment has fallen from a peak of 10½% on a claimant count basis to the present rate of 4%. That is the lowest for 20 years in the UK as a whole, and just about the lowest in nearly every region. This is not just past history. Having come through the global economic slowdown a year or two ago, the economy as a whole is now again growing at well above trend, with inflation a bit below target; and the broad prospect for the next couple of years - on most forecasts, including the MPC’s February forecast based upon our collective best assumptions - is for continuing relatively strong growth with relatively high employment and relatively low inflation.
We observe financial firms engaging in a variety of ways with fintech companies. This can be through the development of in-house projects such as setting up innovation labs or encouraging developers to code on open application program interfaces (APIs). This can also be through collaboration with industry consortiums to come up with unified industry standards that enhance operability and enable future technological advancements, or it can be through partnering with or investing directly in fintech companies. Some of the interesting questions for supervision revolve around things like: what new benefits might these new technologies bring? Will they enhance existing processes or bring about entirely new solutions to existing financial sector problems? Will they create risk, mitigate risk, or simply reallocate existing risks? How should the current supervisory framework evolve to incorporate these types of developments? The New York Fed is assessing the implications of fintech developments through participation in a wide range of Federal Reserve System, interagency, and  3  “Digital Disruption: How Fintech is Forcing Banking to a Tipping Point,” March 2016. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  international efforts. In addition, we meet regularly with supervised firms, fintech companies, and industry groups to follow these developments. Our supervisory program will continue to evolve with the underlying technologies. •  Reputation risk Over the past few years, the New York Fed has been challenging the financial industry to consider the many factors that have contributed to recent, widespread misconduct and the perceived lack of trust in the financial sector.