Money and credit, the universal instruments of commerce, could not exist without this most fundamental of financial technologies, which allows debits and credits to be netted off; debt to circulate as currency; money to replace memory; and with it, trade to expand exponentially. How much have we progressed since Keynes’ bed-ridden globalisation? Replace “telephone” with a “tablet” and “tea” with a “soy latteccino” and you have not the start of the Twentieth Century but the Twenty First, a century in which opportunities are no longer limited to men or denizens of the City. Nonetheless, finance continues to be arranged around a series of hubs like brokers, clearing houses and exchanges; whereas, in other domains, people form connections directly, instantaneously and openly, and this is revolutionising how they consume, work, and communicate. The extent to which finance continues democratising and transforming depends on superficially arcane, but fundamentally vital, enabling technologies. The emergence of mobile telephony, the ubiquity of the internet, availability of high-speed computing, advances in cryptography, and innovations in machine learning could combine to enable rapid changes in finance – just as they have in other areas of the economy. The ledger, once stone, wood, or paper – and always centralised – is now digital and may become distributed. FinTech has the potential to deliver more resilient financial infrastructure, more effective trade and settlement, and new ways to encode, share and analyse data. For the financial sector, these could offer shorter, speedier transaction chains; greater capital efficiency; and stronger operational resilience.
My objective has also been to focus on European issues and to highlight the special conditions of the euro area and the role of the ECB and the Eurosystem in fostering financial stability. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention. 6  BIS Review 53/2003