James Bullard, Essay: President’s Message, Importance of Studying Innovations inPayment Technologies

“Technology is always changing, and it is very clear that financial intermediation will be different in the future than it is today. But exactly how this technology will be dispersed and how long that process will take remain uncertain. Nevertheless, we at the Federal Reserve have to track developments in this area closely so that we can maintain price stability and financial stability and promote a strong economy in the U.S. Also, the Fed already is working toward improving the efficiency of the payments system. The Federal Reserve banks have made a lot of great progress on the development of the FedNow Service, which aims to provide real-time payment services to financial institutions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Whether the new payment technologies discussed in our 2021 annual report are a genuinely innovative disruption that may prove useful for the nation’s financial system remains to be determined. I hope you will read our annual report and find the main essay “The Blockchain Revolution: Decoding Digital Currencies” informative.”