Financial regulation is costly and complex – time for a big tech solution

Cryptocurrencies, new payment systems and digital banking all signal a financial revolution that needs better oversight

Banking supervision teams at the Bank of England "now receive the equivalent of twice the entire works of Shakespeare of reading each week". So says Huw van Steenis, the author of Future of Finance, a report commissioned by the Bank's outgoing governor, Mark Carney.

One might argue with the word "equivalent". Few regulatory submissions rival the bard's output in their timelessness or vivid use of language: the Bank of England would probably send them winging straight back to their originators if they did. But Van Steenis's point about the volume of reporting is a valid one. The system of banking supervision has become highly complex, with a risk that the forest is entirely lost from view in the midst of thousands of trees.

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