The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Swiss-based global authority which governs relations between the world’s central banks, has announced it will establish its own Innovation Hub to nurture the development of cross-border financial technologies.
 

In a statement, Jens Weidmann, BIS Chair, said the Innovation Hub would support the exploration and development of technological trends where they are “consistent with [central banks’] mandate and can help to safeguard global financial stability.

Mark Carney, Chair of the Economic Consultative Committee, said central banks played an integral role in promoting resilience and “levelling the playing field” on which banks compete to encourage greater innovation efforts.

“The BIS Innovation Hub will foster collaboration between central banks and, by extension, help the private sector to fully realise these major opportunities,” Carney said.

As a first step towards implementation, Hub Centres will be established in both Basel, Switzerland, and Hong Kong, making use of existing BIS facilities. A third Hub Centre will be created in Singapore, subject to the completion of the necessary institutional arrangements, also as part of the initial phase of rollouts.

Additional Hub Centres are expected to be established across the Americas and Europe as part of the next phase of implementation. An Australasian hub is yet to be announced.

Both the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand are members of BIS, which counts the central banks of sixty countries across the globe.