Very interesting, thanks. Yes you have to cover operating costs which might get v difficult without transaction fees esp if rates go to zero again. I don't have a clear idea of how high those fees need to be but 0.6% is a useful benchmark. Might be hard to compete with CBDC.

Nice of the BoE not to make it 100% unremunerated reserves

Indeed. Cross-border payments could be one viable use, but creates big headaches for central bankers - do you allow a 'systemic' stablecoin with reserves overseas? Probably not. So maybe proves your point.

Well, TBC in the BoE's case. But if you're accepting that it's a kind of money then I think you probably have to.

Yeah she definitely throws some shade their way!

Full speech here: www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/da...

Quick summary is more use of repo to supply reserves, eventually running QE portfolios down to zero and replacing (some of?) these assets with short-term securities that are more policy neutral.

I did wonder about that, but there doesn't seem to have been any suspicious activity. Very grateful to him if he's been paying our water bill all this time though

Cannot think for the life of me how they got into financial troubles!

The situation has come about because Thames Water somehow managed to register a (possibly non-existent) Polish man by the name of Maciej at our address.

*important caveat to the above: the US dollar is very much dominant still in both the exchange-traded rate derivative market (bigger than OTC) and the FX market.

Also quite interesting, the euro is now top dog in the OTC interest rate derivatives market, overtaking the US dollar. The market as a whole has taken a big pivot away from the US and also grew 59%, with sterling and yen also registering massive rises.*