The Bank of England (BoE) is planning to set up its own fintech hub. That’s according to the deputy governor Dave Ramsden.
The announcement, made in a speech on Thursday, comes as concerns were voiced about the UK’s weak productivity levels.
Fintech – financial technology – is a catchall term for technological innovation in the financial sector, which takes in everything from financial literacy and education to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
The proposed fintech hub will be an integral part of the Bank of England and will be tasked with looking at ways the bank both understands and applies fintech in regards to its core mission.
The announcement comes in the same week the Chancellor of the Exchequer voiced a commitment to aiding the growth of fintech through domestic and international means.
Addressing the topic of weak productivity in his speech, Dave Ramsden said: “[It has been] the defining trend of the last 10 years. Given the size of the financial sector in the UK, I can see fintech driving competition and a pick-up in productivity in the medium term.”
He also spoke of how cryptocurrencies might be employed going forward: “Adapting these technologies for the demands of the financial system poses significant challenges.
“But the distributed ledger and cryptographic technologies used by crypto-assets have the future potential to deliver benefits both to the financial system and to the economy it serves, including increasing efficiency and resilience, and contributing to a more distributed and diverse payments system.”