Sam Woods: Scanning the horizon

Speech by Mr Sam Woods, Deputy Governor for Prudential Regulation of the Bank of England and Chief Executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), at the Building Societies Association, London, 24 May 2019.

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

It's a real pleasure to be invited to join you at what I know is a very important birthday for the Building Societies Association (BSA). The Bank of England is even more ancient but I think it's very impressive for a trade association to make it to its 150th year. I can think of various ways to celebrate this. Perhaps, given recent developments in longevity, we could ask Robin to keep serving until his 150th year? Or you could write to new-born trade associations such as UK Finance and offer them some mentoring, which I'm sure Stephen Jones would be delighted to accept. Or I could give you a really valuable gift by cutting my speech in half and releasing you early for some extra caffeine!

At any rate, given the significance of the occasion I am not surprised to see such a full room this morning. In fact it reminds me of another meeting I recently took part in at the PRA, in a room we call the "auditorium" at 20 Moorgate. The room was absolutely jam-packed with staff from the PRA and the wider Bank - standing room only, in fact if one more person had entered it would have been a clear health and safety breach. My colleague Vicky Saporta was in the Chair, and this was a tough job: arguments raged, data was questioned, competing views were offered and challenged.