“As central banks, we are fundamentally open to innovation,” said Burkhard Balz, executive board member of the Bundesbank, speaking in Singapore in November.

The future of central banking looks inextricably bound to innovation. Over the last 30 years, technological change has transformed the regulatory environment and banking landscape. The territory of banking giants such as JP Morgan, Citi and Goldman Sachs now encompasses big-tech behemoths such as Google and Facebook, which once seemed far