I’m having a great time at Sibos, gang.</p> People are beginning to get tired, which is understandable, it’s an intense few days. </p> And the filters are going out the window, when you are tired. And I am right there listening.</p> A panellist speaking about the role of Central Banks in governing CBDCs asked ‘the role of central banks is changing, for sure, but what is it? What should it be? What can it be?’ </p> This is the content I’m here for folks.</p> Because admitting we don’t know is the first step to learning and is there more magical a thing than *not</strong>* resisting new knowledge? Not resisting the process of learning. The discomfort of admitting you don’t know.</p> And the interesting thing about this week is that there has been a lot of conversation around the things we don’t know in relation to the things we do know. It’s been a revelation.</p> The era of ‘our work over here’ and ‘the fintech stuff over there’ is well and truly over.</p> Our work has been shifting and transforming steadily (if not rapidly) over the last decade and a half and the things we do are infused, replaced or enriched with stuff that was new to us ten years ago.</p> And this shift has brought us to a new place. </p> And we face into new learning and new questions from this new place.</p> So the central banks are not the only ones who need to redefine their role in this new place.</p> Liz Lumley made a rather passionate plea on the Future of Money panel for the Sibos attendees to stare long and hard at themselves and accept that the purpose of the plumbers of the financial services system (because let’s face it that is what we are), is to ensure the plumbing remains fit for purpose and resilient. Not just maintained. Not just ok. But actually up to the task.</p> What does that mean?</p> It means our role is not just to provide custody or transaction services but to serve the people and communities and institutions and, frankly given where we are, governments whose money we manage.</p> Because this is not our money. The money doesn’t belong to the bank. To any bank. It belongs to the customer whose needs are changing in the context of the economy that’s already changed.</p> So the role of the plumbers doesn’t change at all. It’s how to fulfil it that changes.</p> But isn’t that the hardest transition of them all?</p> As I walk around these halls (and getting more than a little emotional as this is a very stable part of the industry with pockets of deep expertise and very long-term relationships of collaboration and friendship at the institutional and personal level) what I see is exactly that.</p> We have done a lot of learning over the last few years. A lot.</p> Not all the learning we have put into practice but a lot of it we have, a lot of it.</p> And yet a whole host of new things to learn are coming down the pipe thick and fast.</p> If we admit that we weren’t exactly where we wanted to be, as an industry, from a digitisation perspective when the world went into the successive shock waves of a pandemic, a war, a looming recession (the R word was mentioned by at least 3 panellists yesterday on the main stage. They went there and although we winced, none objected because how can they?), then the work ahead of us is, if anything, harder than it was three years ago. And it’s three years later and there’s more stuff and we are all tired. </p> A lot of what we are talking about this week is about our redefined roles in a changed world. A world that, by now we have accepted, will keep changing. So the role we will have to fulfil will also keep changing. </p> This means that we can’t wait till we have learned all the things, worked out all the permutations, and weighed up all the risks before we work things out. Much as I would personally love that. We don’t get to do that. </p> What we have to do is work out our role in the changing world now</em>. And again</em> tomorrow. And again</em> the day after.</p> And we need to learn all these new things every day and act on them. At the same time.</p> And I know there is a lot to learn and understand. I know that.</p> As you know, that knowledge is not a substitute for action and there are no participation awards here. If the exam question is ‘what is our role in this world?’ the alternative to action is not</em> more of the same. </p> The alternative is someone else does it for you.</p> Either the working out, and let’s be clear, you may not like where that takes you. </p> Or the doing of the things that would have been your and your organisation’s changing role in a changed world. </p> If you don’t do the thinking someone will either solve the problem for you or remove you from the equation.</p> I, for one, wouldn’t like that one bit.</p>