Philip Lowe: Payments - the future?

Address by Mr Philip Lowe, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, to the Australian Payments Network Summit 2021, online, 9 December 2021.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Thank you for the invitation to speak at AusPayNet's annual Summit. This is the fifth time I have had the privilege of doing so. Each time, the world of payments has seemed more exciting and dynamic than it was a year earlier. No longer do people talk about payments as being the plumbing of the financial system. Instead, they talk about how what is happening in the world of payments is reshaping our financial systems and how it will continue to do so into the future.

Today, I would like to talk about that future.

Making specific predictions is difficult as none of us has a crystal ball. Even so, the general direction of change is reasonably clear, even if we don't know the final destination. This morning I would like to start by talking about this general direction of change. I will also discuss a number of specific near-term priorities and then look a little further into the future. I will finish with some comments on the importance of our regulatory arrangements being flexible enough to deal with this dynamic world.