In the context of the Goethe University Visiting Professorship of Financial History*, currently held by Prof. Catherine R. Schenk (Oxford University), the House of Finance, the Leibniz Institute SAFE and the Institute for Banking and Financial History (IBF) organize and cordially invite you to attend a lecture on
Designing the Global Payments System: Telegraph to Tether
Catherine R. Schenk (Oxford University)
to be held on 29 June 2022, 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
In presence: room Festsaal, Casino building, Campus Westend
Over the past 5 years the FSB and CPMI have undertaken an intensive examination of the global payments system with a view to enhancing its resilience, reducing costs and increasing transparency. In Europe, the TARGET system for cross-border payments suffered five interruption incidents in 2020. The global payments system is a public good that is often provided through the private sector, but it also poses systemic risks that are greater than the private sector can resolve. These official investigations have emerged alongside an acceleration in distributed ledger technology, digital currencies and innovations in messaging systems. Meanwhile, many central banks are considering the potential for central bank digital currencies. How have cross-border payments systems evolved over the longer term and responded to shocks, globalisation and technological innovation?
This lecture takes the long view on understanding the evolution of the underlying plumbing of the international economic system.
Catherine R. Schenk is Professor of Economic and Social History at St Hilda's College, Oxford University. Her research focuses on the development of the international economy since 1945 with particular emphasis on the evolution of international banking and finance and the international monetary system. She is also interested in the transitions between international currencies, and in the history of China’s international economic relations through Hong Kong. In 2018-19 she was Senior Lamfalussy Fellow at the Bank for International Settlements. She is President of the Economic History Society and Associate Fellow in international economics at Chatham House.
She obtained her PhD in Economic History at the London School of Economics.
*The Visiting Professorship of Financial History is endowed by Metzler Bank and the Friedrich Flick Förderungsstiftung.
