Preparations for a digital pound are advancing apace, with the Bank of England and HM Treasury thinking it likely that, in some form, a central bank digital currency will need to be issued in the future. Are they right? If so, what form should a digital Pound take? Join SPE members to hear from – and challenge – a panel of experts on this hot topic on May 30th.

Meet our expert speaker panel:

Rhys Bidder is Deputy Director of the Qatar Centre for Global Banking & Finance and a Senior Lecturer in Finance at King’s Business School. Rhys was an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco for several years, publishing in journals including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Economic Theory and the Journal of Monetary Economics. Rhys has also taught at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, Warwick University and Queen Mary. His work currently is focused on CBDC and its implications for financial stability. In support of this work, Rhys has designed CBDC questions for household surveys run by the Bundesbank and for a recent survey of UK firms, in partnership with the Confederation of British Industry.

Ed Millar is an Economic Adviser in the Bank of England’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Unit. Prior to joining the CBDC Unit, Ed worked across a range of roles in the Monetary Analysis area of the Bank, leading workstreams on monetary strategy, financial markets, Quantitative Easing and other central bank policy tools. Ed previously held various roles in the Prudential Regulation Authority, including Private Secretary to Andrew Bailey and banking and insurance supervision. Before joining the Bank, he held roles in the UK Civil Service and Institute of Physics.

Jannah Patchay  is the founder of Markets Evolution, a consultancy specialising in financial markets innovation and regulatory strategy in both traditional financial and digital asset markets. She is also an Executive Director and Policy Lead for the Digital Pound Foundation, a trade association which she was instrumental in launching in 2021 to advocate for the introduction of a well-designed digital Pound in both publicly and privately-issued forms, and for an effective and diverse ecosystem for new forms of digital money in the UK.

David Skeie is a Professor of Finance at Warwick Business School and the Gillmore Centre for Financial Technology based at Warwick University. He is also a member of the Bank of England and HM Treasury Academic Advisory Group on Central Bank Digital Currency. David was previously a Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an Assistant Professor of Finance and Mays Research Fellow at Texas A&M Mays Business School. He has held additional appointments as a Visiting Researcher at Imperial College Business School, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Finance at NYU Stern School of Business and visiting Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Formerly, he was a securities trader at the hedge fund Citadel Investment Group and a senior associate at the financial risk management consulting firm Capital Market Risk Advisors.

The meeting will start at 9.00am (registration from 8.30am) and is being held at The Studio, Science Gallery London, Great Maze Pond, London, SE1 9GU.

We are delighted to be partnering with King’s Business School (KBS) for this event. Part of King’s College London, KBS is a triple accredited (AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA) business school, rated in the top 10 of UK business schools on the basis of research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework. Based in the iconic Bush House – once the HQ of the BBC World Service – KBS is home to over 4000 students and 150 academic staff, and delivers a suite of specialist Masters and executive education programmes both online and on-campus.

Pre-event registration is required. Members can register via the SPE office.