Financial Services and Markets Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Craig Tracey and Martin Docherty-Hughes

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Craig Tracey]

Q On the technological side of it and the flexibility, do you think there will be a culture shift as a result of the Bill to try and encourage the regulators to be more nimble and flexible?

Sir Jon Cunliffe: With the greatest of respect, I do not think I need my culture shifting, within the regulatory framework that we have at the moment. I have made a series of speeches on new technology and the benefits that new technology can bring and the importance of that, so I would not regard myself as in that position. Others might have a different view and are obviously entitled to it, but I certainly would not accept that, if I can make that point clear. You can look at the published statements of the Bank of England and the speeches we have made.

We welcome schedule 6 of the Bill because it will give us the powers to put in place a regulatory framework for stablecoin and digital assets used as payments. I would argue, because I hear this from lots of the fintech community in London, that they want a regulatory framework. They do not want a system where the public think, “This is unsafe. What happened to Terra and LUNA could happen to me. I could be scammed. I am betting in an unfair casino.” They actually want a regulatory system. They want it to be designed to recognise their technology.

There will always be tension between where we put the risk cursor and where the private sector would like it to be put. That is a discussion we have to have. The importance of this Bill is that it will give us the powers to get on and do it. I do not think I would accept the criticism that our culture is anti-innovation and inflexible. We need the powers and the tools to do that job and that this Bill will give us them.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

Q It is good to see you, deputy governor. In June this year, at the annual lecture of the Bank for International Settlements, the former Governor of the Bank of England —who I believe is your former boss—said in relation to stablecoin, the adoption of cryptocurrency and the concerns about systemic crises:

“In baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out. In cricket, it’s only the equivalent of one. For systemic payment systems, one is too many. If that means, as it must, very rigorous oversight and rules for private stablecoins, what would then differentiate them from CBDCs?”

First, could you answer the former Governor’s question—what then does differentiate them from a central bank’s digital currency? Secondly, I am glad to hear you rightly say that the industry wants good regulation; is this regulation rigorous enough to enable that to happen?

Sir Jon Cunliffe: I do not normally contradict my ex-colleague and boss, Mark Carney, but I would say a number of things. On the landscape, let us be clear about what we are talking about: we are not just talking about new forms of payment systems; we are talking about new forms of money. Most of us do not realise it, but when we use our credit card, phone or cheques—if we use cheques—we are exchanging private money, which is our deposits at commercial banks. What these stablecoin proponents propose to do is create a new settlement asset—that is, a new form of money—to be used in transactions. I think that is why Mark said that when a payment system—the money going through it and the mechanism for transferring it—breaks down, then one of the basically essential services in the economy, like water or electricity, breaks down and transactions cannot happen. So you do not get one strike: if the payment system goes down, people cannot transact at scale. This is fundamental infrastructure, if I can put it that way.

The money that travels through these payment systems is also fundamental to society. It needs to be robust and safe, and history has lots of examples of what happens when people lose confidence in the safety of the money they are holding and transacting. That is why these things are crucially important. However, 95% of the money that we use in our economy is not public money from the Bank of England but private money from commercial banks, and I do not see, a priori, a reason why a new form of private money could not emerge using different technology in the way that stablecoins have proposed. What I will say, and the financial policy committee at the Bank has said this very clearly, is that the money that they use and the transaction machinery that they use must be as robust as the money we are using from commercial banks or the Bank of England. The public should not need to think, “Which money am I using?” It should all be one money of equivalent value.

I think there is a world in which you have a CBDC, stablecoins, commercial bank money and Bank of England cash, which we will produce as long as anybody wants it, and those things are interchangeable and people use them interchangeably—we use the moneys of different banks interchangeably now—but the regulatory system has to be strong and make it very clear that if what you are offering is a better service, an innovation, that is fine, but if it works because it operates to a lower standard, that is not fine.