The Center for Financial Innovation and Stability (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta) and the Center for the Economic Analysis of Risk (Georgia State University) are organizing the conference Financial Stability Implications of New Technology, to be held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta on October 18–19, 2018. The conference goal is to bring together economists, finance and risk management professionals, and regulators to discuss how changing technology is likely to affect financial stability.
The financial system has been evolving in response to changing financial and information technology over the last several decades. However, recent advances in areas such as big data, machine learning, and distributed ledgers have the potential to accelerate the pace of change greatly. These changes could result in a stronger, more resilient financial system—for example, by making it more transparent and improving the ability of regulators to evaluate the financial system and monitor compliance. However, these changes also have the potential to make the system less stable—for instance, by allowing unregulated firms to offer essential financial services, accelerating the pace at which a systemic crisis develops, or raising new cyber-security issues. The conference will look to the past to better understand how changes in technology may affect stability and how regulators can best respond to the changes. It will also look to the present to understand what is happening now and consider how policymakers should respond to a rapidly evolving industry. Finally, it will try to peer into the future to understand better how the financial system is likely to evolve and consider what measures can be taken now to guide it in a more positive direction.