William C Dudley: Opening remarks at the Evolution of Work Conference Opening remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Evolution of Work Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City, 17 November 2016. * * * Nora Fitzpatrick, Laura Pilossoph, Anika Pratt and Aysegul Sahin assisted in preparing these remarks. Good morning. I would like to welcome you to this conference on the Evolution of Work. Today, we will explore how the nature of work is evolving, including the role of technology, shifts in employee work arrangements and employer-employee relationships, and the effects of these changes on workforce development strategies. We are pleased to host this conference with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Freelancers Union. We welcome all the leaders from across academia, government, industry, labor and the nonprofit sector assembled here to explore the transformation of the workforce, and the impact this has had on communities and the economy more broadly. As always, what I have to say today reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee or the Federal Reserve System. As you know, the Federal Reserve monitors the labor market closely, given that maximum sustainable employment is one goal of the Fed’s dual mandate. The evolving nature of the workplace—and the speed with which it is changing—are therefore important developments that we must continue to monitor.
We believe the systemic importance of the payments infrastructure means that central banks and system participants have a common interest in acting together to address the evolving risks. Let me identify some of the major priorities we see in this area that require further collaboration. Higher standards for the core of the system During the past few years, central banks and securities commissioners have developed new standards for the design, operation, and oversight of payments and securities settlement systems. These new standards have been proposed for incorporation in the Federal Reserve’s Policy Statement on Payments System Risks. We are in the process of working, together with other U.S. supervisory and regulatory agencies, to assess the extent to which the affected U.S. systems meet these new standards. We feel that it is especially important for the entities that form the heart of payments and settlement systems to work toward higher standards for safety and soundness and operational resilience. Given the increased scale of activity handled by these entities, the greater concentration among the major participants, and the increased exposure to cross-border activity, these systems today need to meet a more exacting set of standards, and of course this is also true for entities that are less systemically important. More specifically, we would like to see a greater focus on strengthening risk management practices and ensuring that the financial resources of system operators are adequate to deal with the risks to which they are exposed.