Papers from a conference held at the Bank of England ond 19-20 May 2005.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents, List of figures, List of tables. Notes on contributors, Foreword, Sir John Gieve, Acknowledgements, General introduction, Andrew Haldane, Victoria Saporta and Stephen Millard, PART I: Payment systems and public policy, Central banks and payment systems: past, present and future, Victoria Saporta and Stephen Millard, The core role of central banks in payment systems, Edward Green, Challenges for research in payments, Edward Green, Payment economics and the role of central banks, Jeffrey Lacker, PART II: New approaches to modelling payments, New models of old (?) payment questions, Ricardo Cavalcanti and Neil Wallace, Optimal settlement rules for payment systems, Ben Lester, Stephen Millard and Matthew Willison, The microstructure of money, James McAndrews, PART III: Current payment policy issues, Wholesale payments: Questioning the market-failure hypothesis, George Selgin, Central bank intraday collateral policy and implications for tiering in RTGS payment systems, John Jackson and Mark Manning, Central banks' interest calculating conventions: deviating from the intraday/overnight status quo, Morten Bech, George Speight, Matthew Willison and Jing Yang, How should we regulate banks' liquidity?, Jean-Charles Rochet, PART IV: Policy perspectives on the future of payments, The diffusion of real-time gross settlement, Morten Bech, E-settlement: Soon a reality?, Harry Leinonen, Real-time liquidity management in a globally connected market, Richard Pattinson, Will central banking survive electronic money?, Stefan Schmitz, Payment systems and central banks: Where are we now and where will e-payments take us?, Charles Freedman

Drawing on wide-ranging contributions from prominent international experts and discussing some of the most pressing issues facing policy makers and practitioners in the field of payment systems today, this volume provides cutting-edge perspectives on the current issues surrounding payment systems and their future. It covers a range of continually important topics, including: the form payment systems might take in the future the risks associated with this evolution the techniques being deployed to assess these risks and the implications these risks have for the respective roles of the public and private sector. Produced in association with the Bank of England, this book is fascinating reading for practitioners and policy makers in the field of payment systems, as well as students and researchers engaged with the economics of payments and central banking policy.