US FOMC Member Barr Speaks

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.1 The United States has an enviable entrepreneurial culture and a strong track record of building new companies. Yet, new and small business owners often navigate significant challenges from establishment to growth. These challenges typically include limitations in accessing capital, in developing robust business and professional networks for peer support and opportunities, and in building the comprehensive skills, resources, and social connections that contribute greatly to ...

Thanks to the Alliance for Innovative Regulation for organizing this event and for bringing together banks, fintechs, and regulators to collaborate and foster responsible innovation. Innovation, when done responsibly, brings tremendous benefits to consumers, financial institutions, and the economy at large. Innovation can make financial products and services better, cheaper, and safer. It can make banking accessible to more consumers, advancing financial inclusion. It can modernize our financial infrastructures, creating efficiencies and providing new tools for banks to manage risk. Innovation also comes with risks that need to be managed responsibly. Responsible innovation is in everyone's interest. Consumers want the benefits of innovation through products and services they can trust. Banks have an interest in managing the complexities of innovation responsibly, ensuring that they recognize new and evolving risks to safety and soundness, follow relevant laws, and protect and serve their customers. Fintechs often play a key role in offering products and services that allow banks to meet these needs. And regulators and supervisors should develop regulatory and supervisory frameworks that allow banks to clearly understand and manage the risks associated with innovative activities. To achieve that, regulators should provide ongoing transparency and clarity on our approach. Today, I'd like to share how the Federal Reserve's Novel Activities Supervision Program, launched in the summer of 2023, plays an important role in supporting responsible innovation at our supervised institutions.2 Prior to this program, the Federal Reserve established temporary working groups and task forces to better understand evolving technologies to inform supervision. Ultimately, though, we determined we needed a dedicated supervisory function for novel activities. There were a number of factors driving that decision that guided post: Fed's Barr doesn't discuss monetary policy in prepared remarks.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I note that the objectives of the Program on Financial Stability include "supporting the world's financial authorities in refining proven crises management tools and strategies." Speaking as a representative of one of those authorities, I thought I would further the program's goals by focusing these remarks on the principles and practice of crisis management. I am favored in that task with what one might call the luck of having been regularly confronted with crises in each of my ...

Banks play an indispensable role in an economy that works for everyone. They enable households to borrow to buy a home, save for the future, and deal with the ups and downs of managing finances. Banks provide the credit for businesses to smooth out income and expenses, supply capital to seize new opportunities and create jobs, and facilitate the flow of payments that are the lifeblood of our economy. And banks borrow from households and businesses as well, such as through federally insured deposits. Because of these vital roles, we ...

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have accelerated rapidly over the past few years. It is now commonplace to see autonomous vehicles navigating city streets, and generative AI tools are available on phones and other devices wherever we go. AI innovations make headlines and play a big role in financial markets, and generative AI has the potential to change how we think about productivity, labor markets and the macroeconomy. Today, I will address that question by outlining two hypothetical scenarios for AI's impact and the ...