Mark Carney: Remarks at a farewell dinner in honour of Benoît Coeuré, member of the ECB Executive Board

Speech by Mr Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, at a farewell dinner in honour of Benoît Coeuré, member of the European Central Bank Executive Board, European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, 17 December 2019.

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

Before I begin, I must emphasise that those who might be searching for cryptic central bank signals about future policy will be disappointed. I am speaking in the MPC's quiet period, and my comments have no bearing whatsoever on the decision the MPC will announce on Thursday.

This wonderful evening celebrates an extraordinary individual. There should be, and will be, great joy and immense gratitude. But as with all such occasions there is also the melancholic feeling of an end of an era, the passing of the ancien regime.

Certainly, central banks face many challenges:

•  Markets prone to severe bouts of illiquidity;
•  A global economy that risks falling into a low growth, low inflation rut caused by deep structural forces, limited policy space, and growing concerns over the fracturing of the global trading system;
•  Innovations in private payments encroaching on central banks' very raison d'être, the provision of money; and
•  A growing climate crisis that will affect every aspect of finance.