1  Paper by Robleh D Ali, Andrew G Haldane and Paul Nahai-Williamson. 2  Oh et al (2011). 3  Oh et al (2011). 4  Ginsburgh and Weber (2011). 5  Counterparty Risk Management Policy Group (2008). BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Compared with these industries, finance has been a laggard. But the tide is turning. Since the crisis, significant progress has been made by financial firms, regulators and trade associations in developing information systems and the common data standards necessary to underpin them. Conferences like this are evidence of that. At the same time, there is a distance to travel before banking harvests the benefits other industries have already reaped. A common financial language has the potential to transform risk management at both the individual-firm and system-wide level. It has the potential to break-down barriers to market entry, leading to a more decentralised, contestable financial sector. And it thereby has the potential to both boost financial sector productivity and tackle the too-big-to-fail problem at source. There is no technological barrier to this transformation. And private and social interests are closely aligned as improved information systems are a public as well as a private good. That public-private partnership is one reason why such good progress has been made over the past few years. So stand back for a good news story – a story of how finance could transform both itself and its contribution to wider society.
Senior Supervisors Group (2010), “Observations on Developments in Risk Appetite Frameworks and IT Infrastructure”, December. Senior Supervisors Group (2009), “Risk Management Lessons from the Global Banking Crisis of 2008”, October. SIL International (2009), http://www.ethnologue.com. “Ethnologue:  Languages  of  the  World”,  available  at  Tett, G (2012), “Guiding light needed to cut through data fog”, Financial Times, 8 March 2012. Vise, D A and Malseed, M (2005), “The Google Story”, Pan Books. World Trade Organisation www.wto.org/statistics. BIS central bankers’ speeches  (2011),  “International  Trade  Statistics”,  available  at  17