Fireside chat Fireside Chat at the Investment Magazine 2026 Chair Forum
Brad Jones
Assistant Governor (Financial System)
Investment Magazine 2026 Chair Forum
Sorrento –
Transcript
Speaker
Reserve Bank of Australia Dr Brad Jones, Assistant Governor of the financial system, hes not going to talk about interest rates. Please dont ask him any dopey questions. That was all put out yesterday. He doesnt look after that part of the bank per se. He does look after your part, however, and its my pleasure to introduce Dr David Bell who will host Dr Brad Jones. Please welcome them.
David Bell
Brad, welcome, and welcome back. Thanks for being here and thanks for sharing the RBAs perspective and monitoring of the superannuation system and that connection between the monetary system, liquidity and the big capital thats in the room.
Twelve months ago you set out a framework where you were thinking about two different groups of risks. One was the business cycle risks which you didnt really go into, but then we went into a second set of structural risks which included geopolitical, operational risk and climate risk. So today, 12 months on, lets start with that international scene set, and Im guessing its the structural issues that are keeping you awake at night.
Brad Jones
Yes, thanks, David. Its not that we dont worry about the business cycle, obviously we do, its just that all central banks have got plenty of experience in navigating those sorts of issues. I think internationally the three slow burning issues that are occupying our attention would be No. 1, geopolitical disorder; No. 2, the increase in sovereign debt internationally; and No. 3 would be the imbalances in China. So maybe if I start at the bottom there.
On China, its not so much that we worry, that I worry, about a classic emerging market style sudden stop. Historically emerging markets that have had very big credit booms, thats been the thing thats brought them undone, not to worry about that so much in China just because of the nature of who owns the debt, i.e. its largely domestically owned. So the authorities there have quite a lot of control over the pace of deleveraging and also how the pain is distributed across the system. The larger question with China is the appetite of the rest of the world to absorb Chinas industrial surplus. That ones a big open question.
On sovereign debt, over the years its become increasingly difficult to see how anything other than a crisis in the bond market in large, advanced economies is going to prompt the authorities to change course. Now, theres no obvious way of being able to predict a debt sustainability crisis. The way the math works is its not a problem until its a problem. Its a problem when the interest rate exceeds the trend rate of growth on the economy, and that could – maybe that never happens or maybe it happens tomorrow. Its inherently unstable. The things that worry us there, though, is just that most large, advanced economies now do not have a medium-term fiscal framework, and were observing war time-like deficits being run in a period of economic strength. Most G7 countries have a debt to GDP ratio in excess of 100% which historically you would only ever see after war. At the same time that the supply of debt is rising, the demand from price insensitive buyers of government bonds is diminishing at the margins. So theres a few things coming together there thats a bit worrying.
Finally on geopolitics, and just to be clear, this is not an issue that weve just started to think about in the last six or 12 months. Weve had a program of work underway around this with my colleagues on the Council of Financial Regulators for a number of years, and what that reflects is a recognition that there are very big structural pressures that are building inside the international system that relate to changes in the distribution of power and that relate to big questions over the perceived legitimacy of that system.
When you look back across the sweep of history weve had four attempts in about four centuries at trying to construct some semblance of order. In the mid-17th Century, the Treaty of Westphalia, after the Napoleonic Wars, again after World War I and then after World War II with the Bretton Woods and San Francisco Accords. Out of those four attempts two have lasted a long time and provided a terrific foundation for peace and economic stability, two did not. Theres clearly big pressures on the current system. We are starting to observe some signs of fragmentation in the global economy and in the international financial system in response to these pressures.
Some of the changes are just organic, they just reflect that different parts of the world are growing at different rates and so you would expect some changes in the international financial system to occur organically. But others do look a bit less benign, and the areas that were sort of monitoring here is the way that sanctions are being used, the way that capital flows are starting to change, changes in reserve currency holdings, changes in the international payments system, and potential changes in the global financial stability net. So theyre the dimensions of this theme of international fragmentation that are on our radar and attracting certainly plenty of my attention.
David Bell
Brad, the words you used last year were – I loved reading the session notes from last year, the transcript – You know, theres a reversion to a more contested world, a type of world that in fact prevailed for many centuries and this has come after eight years of peace, and youve just now reiterated that in sort of four pressure points, I guess. Can I just jump back to the China piece for a minute where the imbalances are and the outcome of those imbalances, and you said youre not necessarily concerned about an economic event in China, a crisis event that impacts external investors because most of the debt is provided internally but the absorption of that industrial surplus, yet to a degree much of the world needs that, to absorb that industrial surplus to contain its own inflation rate. So theres sort of a – theres a balance there that you need to continue as well, isnt there?
Brad Jones
Yes, look, theres tensions and contradictions wrapped all through that mix, but at the same time you do have to give policymakers some credence for having managed to sustain rates of growth that we just havent observed in a large economy for long periods of time. So its a very complex system. As I said, just using your standard emerging market analytical framework and imposing that in thinking how these tensions get resolved in China I dont think is very helpful.
One aspect that we havent mentioned that sort of ties the industrial surplus piece with the debt piece is deflation. One thing that we do know from – one lesson from history is a heavily indebted economy that is grappling with deflation, thats a real challenge, and I know thats very much in the foremost of a lot of peoples thinking about how this excess industrial surplus is being exported. Partly what that reflects is theres not enough domestic demand and youre seeing sort of not much inflationary pressure in China, and then theres a question, well, does that then reinforce this debt sustainability issue in China. So, as I said, I suspect its going to be a slow burn, but the final chapter has not been written on that one.
David Bell
Yes. Moving to super funds and the financial system, so this time last year really it was – I wouldnt say an introduction of the RBA to the super industry, but it was sort of one of the first times the RBA stepped on to a platform in front of the superannuation industry and as an announcement that were engaging with you more, and I take it through the last 12 months since weve been here that that engagement has stepped up more and that you are sort of directly engaging with major industry participants. Your comments on superannuation, I see theyre always heavily scrutinised by media, which you sort of can really get quite narrow in its framing. How would you frame the super fund sectors contribution to financial stability in Australia?
Brad Jones
The short answer is its been positive up until now. Thats the short answer. That said, theres some big challenges ahead and things are going to keep evolving, but I think you have to acknowledge the starting point. The starting point is that this is a national asset, this pool of capital, it is the envy of many countries in the world, and there are important structural features in the industry which distinguish it from many of its counterparts internationally which has, I think, been helpful from a financial stability perspective. Constraints on leverage, the absence of guaranteed returns, the fact that the liabilities are not really runnable, the long-term horizons, all of those things distinguish some other systems internationally. Empirically when we look back at case studies, deep dives, around 2008, how did the industry behave in 2008 and how did the industry behave in 2020, the two big shocks in the last 20 years.
What we found in 2008 was that the super system was a larger than usual net purchaser of Australian equities right at the time when our banking system, for instance, and the financial markets were experiencing most stress. And then in 2020 what we observed was super funds selling offshore equities, bringing some of that capital home, putting some of it to work in domestic equities. We havent seen margin calls in foreign exchange market, FX derivative margin calls would be particularly destabilising. So thats the good news, and theres a but, and the but relates to thats been the story up till now and we shouldnt extrapolate and some things are going to change in the future. It certainly also helps when youve got net inflows of one and a-half to two billion a week. That certainly helps from a financial stability perspective, and thats one of the things that are going to change going forward.
David Bell
I guess thats what was part of the shock of 2020, that those contributions slowed and some money was allowed to be taken out of the system at short notice. So there was a shock to the underpinnings there.
Brad Jones
Yes, well – yes. I think what really helped there was that JobKeeper turned out to be a very important policy initiative in that the withdrawals from the system turned out to be a lot less than what would have otherwise been the case.
David Bell
Yes. So I think, yes, the points youre making, Brad, there, that the system has performed that counterbalancing role, a really valuable role in a time of crisis, particularly around the GFC, and thats been quite celebrated by the industry, but I think theres a warning there that – youre effectively making a warning that that provision in the future is far from guaranteed. We find similar stuff ourselves in the paper we released last year, Systemic Impacts of Big Super. So theres a lot of alignment there.
One of the key pieces that came out during the discussion last year was the piece about some of the structural changes, and one of them particularly interesting, and wouldnt mind an update on it, and that is super fund holdings of short-term bank debt, and you pointed out that the number has gone from 5% up to 35%. Is that something in the intervening period, the last 12 months, youve been engaging with the funds on more or the banks or just trying to work out what could an orderly unwind look like there in a difficult situation?
Brad Jones
Yes, thats an example of this sort of broad thematic about things are changing and so we shouldnt just blindly extrapolate the past into the future. When we think about liquidity risk more generally, so what are the things that are going to change? No. 1, the ownership share of various asset classes in Australia will almost certainly continue to rise. No. 2, theres a question around could pro-cyclicality in the industry be amplified through some combination of the growing role of external advisers, and weve heard a lot about that today, could it be the way that benchmarks are constructed, could it be more members switching, as more members get closer to retirement large balances become more sensitive to market sell. Theres a few things there to unpack that could be different.
The share of assets in retirement phase is going to grow. So the system becomes less of a closed loop than historically. Margin calls from the growing FX hedge book are almost certainly going to grow, and really the wild card here is do we have another early release scheme that the industry is not ready for? None of us know what the next systemic crisis is going to look like, but that seal has been broken once. So it behoves us to at least think about the possibility that that is another – that lever is pulled again in the future.
All of that said, the work that weve done and our engagement with APRA and the industry suggests, industry has uplifted, no question, since COVID. That progress, though, has been a bit uneven is the general sense. So some funds have now got liquidity risk management practices that are very, very strong, but its absolutely not the case right across the industry. So theres a question of maturation and deepening across the industry on liquidity risk. But if I could just add, thats not the only thing that we think is going to change. I should call out the FX piece. Its partly related.
We dont see there being systemic issues today, but again, there are some changes, some slow-moving changes that we can see coming down the pike. The fact that half of the industrys assets are held offshore, thats going to grow and so the hedging demands off the back of that will grow. Demographics alone will suggest that therell probably be more of a tilt toward fixed income, and we know the hedge ratios in fixed income are about three times higher than they are in equities. Margining and collateral requirements from counterparties are also almost certain to increase because a lot of large funds at the moment dont have to post margin or are on very favourable terms from their counterparties. As you start hitting your limits, credit limits with your counterparties and have to include more counterparties, including non-domestic banks, it would be prudent to anticipate they will not provide such generous terms as the industry has enjoyed up until this point. And then theres just a question about the correlations between currencies and different asset classes, could that structurally change and what does that mean for hedging. So theres a bunch of things in there that could also be quite different from the last 20 or 30 years.
David Bell
In one of the slides I brought up previously just projected the industry forward 10 years using a compound growth rate of 8%, which is less than whats been experienced recently, and that puts you in a system that is 120% larger than it is today. So all those issues are magnified that youve just listed through. If I just wrote them all out, obviously the ownership share, which is going to force you offshore, and thats going to really exacerbate the FX ownership footprint, isnt it. Its probably the one that multiple outlets are pushing you towards. How do you sort of help funds solve for that issue? Do they need more counterparty exposure? Is there a way of getting a group of funds to work together to create a broader marketplace for FX? Or how does that expand with the demand?
Brad Jones
This is a super deep market, super deep market, and the swap market where a lot of this hedging activity goes on is deeper than the spot market. So although the super fund industry is going to grow, so will other asset classes, so will the hedging needs of big corporates and so on. So this is a market that has a huge amount of churn and theres flows coming in from all directions and theres hedgers and theres speculators so its a pretty deep and diverse ecosystem. But what it does, I think, suggest is along with the liquidity risk issue more generally, I think it does behove industry to think about the types of assumptions that are underpinning the management of these risks.
So assuming, for instance – and this came out in APRAs recent system-wide stress test – what APRA was able to uncover from the system-wide stress test, which included the four largest banks and the six largest super funds, was the presumption from the super funds that in the event of a big liquidity shock you would all sell international equities and bring that money home. Now, I think those exercises are useful in surfacing if every fund is thinking theyll be able to act exactly the same way then there may be some fallacy of composition risk that weve got. So when youre coming up with and interrogating as boards liquidity risk management plans, just pausing and asking the teams that are providing their plans to you, do you think other super funds would be acting in the same way youre proposing here? And if the answer is yes, then maybe its worth another look.
David Bell
Its a great message to industry there. Im just going to switch channel, Brad. I want to get to some discussion around innovation in the financial system, also talk a little bit about views on central bank independence and then we will have some good time for audience questions. Just before I jump into the innovation piece, did you want to make any more comments on the geopolitics or the Australian system and the systemic risks there?
Brad Jones
Maybe the last thing Ill just say there is the way that weve come to view these risks, and they are vast and they cut across the system and lots of parts of the economy in complex ways, maybe just to encourage people to think about these risks in a couple of dimensions. One is the traditional sort of market credit liquidity risks. But when youre talking about geopolitics it brings into the frame a set of risks that typically in the financial system at least havent had to think too deeply about, things like insider risk, operational risk, how would your fund operate in a different sanctioning regime, threats to your critical infrastructure. There are different sorts of risks that emerge that are beyond just the standard market liquidity credit, and so our advice would be split them apart and think deeply about both of those.
David Bell
Yes, those last ones are particularly interesting. At last years ASIC conference the head of ASIO was the opening speaker and the comments and the fear you could see in the comments being made about the potential for future attacks on Australian financial infrastructure, across all infrastructure, but then the specific example of financial infrastructure just go very much to your point and the need to have scenario planning in place, which is probably the technique for thinking about those things at least.
Brad Jones
If I could just add, the last thing I really should have mentioned there, and Margaret touched on it, is this interaction between operational risk and liquidity risk in the super sector, and the events in April last year were a shot across the bow, and I actually, when I meet my colleagues internationally, talk about that episode which we as a regulatory community think of as basically a shot across the bow. So where you could have a number of risks metastasising at the same time, a big market event, liquidity shock that is compounded by nefarious actors launching a wave of cyber attacks specifically to undermine confidence in our financial system. So being alert to that, I think, should give an extra push on the work that our colleagues at APRA are doing around operational risk. Its no longer a neat bucket, but how might operational risks compound liquidity stress in the system.
David Bell
Thanks, Brad. Moving on to innovation in the financial system, and really the banks work on central bank digital currency. Last year we had a little bit of an overview on Project Acacia and the potential for tokenised financial markets. Recently Conexus ran a roundtable where there was expressed excitement about the potential for tokenisation and digitisation and how that can make private markets more accessible in smaller bite sizes and just more usable so it opens up portfolio flexibility. Brad, could you please provide an update on where were going and what progress is being made and what your learnings are as the RBA?
Brad Jones
I mean, the key policy question were asking ourselves that underlies all this work is how can our financial system be more efficient, be more functional and are more resilient, particularly our wholesale markets. Thats where weve observed maybe the most amount of inertia. For instance, the way that our banks fund themselves in term deposits, that process basically hasnt changed in 25 years.
The secondary question is: what is the right mix of public and private innovation to bring out those efficiencies that improve performance? Do we need a CBDC or are there other adjustments that we can make to our financial market infrastructure short of that?
The tokenisation piece is a big area of focus for us. Cross border is another. Theyre probably the two areas where we see the biggest scope for potential gains. On the tokenisation of markets, financial markets, theres a case there for green field markets, carbon credits and others that we have in Project Acacia, but also for established markets. The potential benefits that were looking at there are 24/7 trading, being able to collapse counterparty and settlement risk, reducing collateral costs because youre not tying up collateral for two or three days waiting for settlement to occur, removing a lot of manual intermediaries, and programmability, being able to program conditional trades, for instance. These are all the potential benefits and were seeing things take off in the US now, tokenised money market funds and recon and so on.
All of that said, there are some challenges here. Interoperability of ledgers on and off chain, fragmentation of liquidity, pre-funding trades. There are some issues to unpack there. Well have more to say in a couple of months, but I would say that on the monetary side, the two-tier system that weve had for a long time where the central bank concentrates on a few public goods – trust in money, finality of settlement across our balance sheet, banks, level playing field for competition – and then the private sector doing all the innovation on top and all the client facing, we think that theres very good merits for that sort of construct continuing in the future no matter what function or form future money takes.
David Bell
Thank you. I just want to move now on to central bank independence, but after that Ill go straight to audience questions, so theres a chance to start thinking about what youd like to ask Brad. Its wonderful that we have him here on stage.
So we came up with these notes of where wed like to go, central bank independence, and in between writing those notes weve had a new appointment in the US, Kevin Warsh, which is fascinating. We also had a letter which Michele Bullock signed showing full solidarity with the concept of central bank independence. So theres a number of dynamics at play here and Id really be interested in your thoughts and what youd like to say on the topic.
Brad Jones
We recognise that sometimes we have to make decisions that are not popular with segments of the community. The historical record is pretty clear about the consequences of an alternative model. Weve tried that. One of the great things about living in a democracy is that people are free to express their views, including on topics like interest rates, and all central banks recognise that with operational independence comes very important public accountability obligations. We take those extremely seriously and its absolutely right that the central bank should have to explain and be accountable to the public for its decisions.
Theres a couple of elements to that. One is our accountability to the Parliament. Well be at the House of Reps on Friday in the latest iteration of that method of important accountability. But also our accountability directly to the Australian public, and I hope that with the introduction of press conferences after policy announcements that thats helping on the accountability and transparency journey as well because, as I said, we take it incredibly seriously.
David Bell
So that independence has to go hand in hand with those two forms of accountability that you framed up. Colin wouldnt let me on stage again if I didnt try and prompt you a bit on the Kevin Warsh appointment.
Brad Jones
I wish him all the best.
David Bell
I tried, Colin. Okay, Ill hand over now to questions from the floor. Can we have a couple of microphones ready, please?
Questioner
For the great presentation. Recently we took our board at Care Super – were based around the country, but we took some of our directors down the road from my house to UNSW and took a quick tour around the quantum computers that theyre building from the ground up. We heard from Michelle Simmons about her timeframe for construction. In short, once she finds land close to the university shes up and building and ready to go. So the kind of standard quantum timeframe of, you know, its 10 years, 10 years, 10 years is obviously now significantly reduced from that. Weve got a quantum strategy, but, you know, much of it says were not sure what well do when a quantum computer just breaks through all possible cyber security measures that we have. Super interested to think what the RBA is thinking about this, especially given in Australia were so good at quantum and so close to developing these kind of technologies just down the road from most of our offices.
Brad Jones
Yes, great question. So this is an area that we are focused on and I made some public remarks about this a couple of times last year. We are acutely aware that were moving into a phase – in fact were right in right now – of harvest now, decrypt later. Thats the strategy for nefarious actors. So we think its critically important that the financial system move on to the advanced encryption standards as a matter of priority. Were doing a lot of work with other agencies on that and follow the counsel from the Australian Government about the sorts of timeframes that are involved. It is going to almost certainly unleash some terrific innovation and its also going to open up some big tail risks, and its impossible to know precisely when that nut will have been cracked. The latest advice that we have is that industry should be prepared from 2030 onwards.
Questioner
You mentioned sovereign indebtedness at a global level. Just wondering what the RBAs view is domestically. I think analysis just came out to show that our budget deficits wont be reduced over the next 10-year period. This state has the lowest credit rating in Australia, and we potentially – while our debt to GDP on global basis isnt as heavy as a lot of western economies – arguably we may not have the ability, the amount of outflows by government in spending to repair the deficit. So how does the RBA view the Australian situation on sovereign indebtedness and does it go to the state level or does it just focus at the federal?
Brad Jones
For reasons Im sure you can imagine Im not going to pass commentary on our deficits. Your opening observation, though, is right. We are fortunate in Australia that we have low levels of government debt by the standards of our international peers. Its really up to our elected officials and the Australian public as to what the right level is. Thats not something that I think I should be drawn into. Thanks for the question, though.
David Bell
I think youve done well. I can see a question at the back right.
Questioner
I just want to explore a bit more about how we might be thinking of the White Houses independence from the US Federal Reserve and what might be the implications more globally. In particular, do you see that theres a risk that the US may change its position on cooperating with the global payments system through the International Bank, through BIS, or through the World Bank, and related to that issue, we do note that the Reserve Banks at record levels in terms of its reserve assets. Are you investing more or less into the US at the current moment?
Brad Jones
On the first question about is the US looking to engage with other institutions, other international institutions, in a different way, I dont have a lot to add there. I think every new administration comes in and looks at the long list of international institutions that the US engages with and supports and thinks about doing things differently, and I think thats obviously happening now.
The second question was are we investing our reserves in a different way. If you look at the asset classes we invest in and so on, those reserves are managed very tightly relative to benchmarks and those benchmarks have not changed much over the years. There will always be some natural deviation every now and again. The Banks got a very small reserve portfolio compared to a number of our peers like Japan or Switzerland. So, actually, if youre thinking about capital flows, the significance of capital flows from Australia outbound, its the people in this room here that are going to perhaps have more influence than our reserve portfolio.
Questioner
Thanks, Brad. Its been a great discussion. My key role and why Im here, I guess, is I chair the Advisory Board of the Conexus Institute. Now, forgive me if I asked this question of you last year, but whats the appetite for the RBA to provide emergency liquidity to super funds like it does with banks by discounting the banks discount eligible securities to you and you provide them, they repo those securities, and I just wonder – it seems technically possible for this to be done in the super system, but there just doesnt seem to be any appetite for it. Am I right about that?
Brad Jones
The question for us would be why, and I guess the starting point – well, the first point I would make, actually, is, I think as I probably said in response to a similar question last year, is it would be prudent to manage your liquidity in a way that did not rely on the presumption of central bank liquidity support.
Let me take a step back and just explain why central banks internationally have, for the better part of 150 years, thought about this differently in respect to banks. As a society we have collectively made a decision that banks perform really valuable tasks, socially useful tasks, but we also recognise that the way that theyre configured introduces some tail risks that, if they were to be realised, could have magnified effects because of the way that the credit creation mechanism works. So to insure against that risk what central banks and regulators, in our case APRA, have done, is to be very clear about the requirements to hold very, very significant liquidity buffers for extreme tail risks and to be very intrusive in the oversight regime, also to deal with moral hazard issues that always underlies the emergency liquidity issue.
Super funds are fundamentally different to banks in a number of the dimensions I mentioned at the outset. The main one is the liabilities are not runnable in the same way they are for banks, and also the leverage piece is fundamentally different. There are very significant constraints on this industry being able to take on leverage. Now, there are constraints for banks as well, but banks are significantly more levered than they are super funds. So theres big structural differences there that sit behind this.
Now, theres also the case that central banks need not only in a crisis have the option of lending to individual institutions. They can also potentially act as market maker of last resort. That is, liquify the underlying markets that are turning dysfunctional. And central banks, including the Reserve Bank, in a crisis have been prepared to act as market maker of last resort in the markets that are relevant to the transmission of monetary policy. So for us thats Australian Government securities market and the FX market. Weve done that through history. All other central banks have. So this sort of lender of last resort function is not just an institutional construct, it can relate to markets.
So thats a long winded way of me coming back to my opening observation. It would be prudent to presume that that option would not be available, and I think theres very good reasons that super funds shouldnt ever get themselves into a situation where that would be needed.
Questioner
I totally get all the nuances here, but during the GFC a reasonable amount of super was locked up quietly. The next time around therell be a hell of a lot more Australians in retirement who actually are looking for a flow of income draw downs out of those funds that simply wasnt present last time, but I do get all your points and I promise I will not ask this question next year.
David Bell
Ill hold him to that one for you, Brad. I can see a question down there.
Questioner
I did just want to commend you on – and ASIC as well on Project Acacia. Im just interested, any of the use cases in terms of the innovation that youre most excited about outside of Northern Trusts?
Brad Jones
Let me answer that in a different way. Where we are seeing industry most interested is in the fixed income markets. That seems to be – and that, by the way, is something that weve also observed with our international peers, and the way thats playing out today, for instance, is that the area where youre seeing the tokenisation really take off in the US is in money market funds and repo. So what were hearing from industry is we see frictions in our fixed income markets, we think theres some exciting opportunities there, lets kick the tyres harder. Weve been profiting through Project Acacia basically a sandbox – for those that are not familiar with that project, a sandbox, a pilot – to better understand what innovation needs to happen to create better functionality for both issuers, but also for investors, and I suspect whatever the next iteration, whatever comes after Project Acacia, I suspect – well, I can say – it would be terrific to have big investors, perhaps from this room, outside this room, its an equal opportunity space, to come and explore how our financial system can work more efficiently than it is today. Were thinking about this not from a one or two year perspective. Im trying to think about how could the financial system be fundamentally different in 10 or 20 years time. Theres tokenisation maybe – theres no guarantees – it may be an innovation that we look back on in the same way that the move from a paper-based system to electronic system. This could be the new epoch. Certainly the more optimistic characterisations would have you believe thats the case. Were still interrogating that. Were still challenging and stress testing that proposition, but we need big investors to get interested in experimentation in this space for us to really understand if theres something there worth pursuing.
David Bell
Im going to begin to finish up via a final question for you, Brad. This has been a great session. Thank you for making the time, thank you for being so open, particularly on geopolitics, the connections between the system, the need for prudence and thinking more broadly in the way we think about risk and so forth. The question is trying to connect banking and superannuation. Banks transform liquidity, they borrow short and lend out long in terms of mortgages. The super industry has its own strange liquidity transformation. It provides daily liquidity to most of its members and it invest often in long dated, sometimes illiquid assets. Have you ever just looked at that and said, wow, is that actually – thats quite a quirky feature of this system?
Brad Jones
I mean, the two systems are different in a number of the ways that Ive already discussed. I think more of where my interest and attention in this space, and its a different focus than my colleagues at APRA or ASIC, the direct regulators are thinking much more about the system at large, and theres just a number of things that are going to happen in the next 10 to 20 years in the industry in aggregate that are just going to look very different and will impact our financial system very differently, and the growth of the share and retirement assets, the growth of funds being deployed offshore, all of that is part of that mix and we look forward to continuing the dialogue because – Ive had conversations with a number of people in this room – weve certainly enjoyed that interaction, learnt a lot. Hopefully its of some value for us to give a read-out on overarching assessment, but Im sure were all going to learn a lot in the next five years.
David Bell
Great closing comments. Please thank Assistant Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Brad Jones.
Brad Jones
Thanks, David. Cheers. Thank you.