The Future of Money - ONLINE ONLY

Rapid changes in technology and in the preferences of firms and households are features of the Australian economy, nowhere else more so than in the payments system. How are central banks, including the RBA, thinking about the future of money, both digital and physical cash? What could be the role of central bank digital currencies, stablecoins and tokenised bank deposits in supporting innovation, and what are the financial stability risks? And how could the demand for physical cash evolve in the future? 

You are invited to join us for this webinar during which we are fortunate to have Assistant Governor Brad Jones (Financial System) and Assistant Governor Michelle McPhee (Business Services) from the Reserve Bank of Australia discuss these issues with Professor Richard Holden (UNSW).

 About our Speakers

Michelle McPhee is the Assistant Governor (Business Services) at the Reserve Bank of Australia.  She is responsible for the Bank's provision of a range of services to the community, including banking services to the Australian Government and overseas central banks, payment and settlement services to participants in the Australian financial system, and the issue of Australian banknotes. Prior to her current position, Michelle was the Head of Banking at the Reserve Bank of Australia, a role she has held for the last four years. She spent six years as the Head of Risk and Compliance and, prior to that, held a number of senior management positions at the Bank primarily in financial market operations. Michelle was a Member of the Australian Payments Council. She has also been a director of Note Printing Australia and Chair of its Audit and Risk Committee.

Dr Brad Jones is Assistant Governor (Financial System) at the Reserve Bank of Australia and Deputy Chair of the Payments System Board. He oversees the RBA’s policy work in financial stability and payments, including the future of money and geopolitical risk. Brad is a member of the Council of Financial Regulators, the Financial Stability Board Standing Committee on Vulnerabilities and the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, and Chair of the RBA’s Financial Market Infrastructure Review Committee. He joined the RBA in 2018, serving as Head of International Department and then as Head of Economic Analysis Department. In the fifteen years prior to joining the RBA, Brad was a senior advisor at the International Monetary Fund in Washington D.C., held global macro research and investment responsibilities at Deutsche Bank in London and Hong Kong, and was a Fellow at the Cambridge University Judge Business School.

Richard Holden, Scientia Professor of Economics at UNSW Business School, Director of the Manos Institute for Cognitive Economics, and President Emeritus of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He is also a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review.  Previously he was on the faculty at the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He received an AM and a PhD in economics from Harvard University.  Prior to graduate school he worked in private equity for several years, and he continues to advise in the corporate sector.  He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and the Royal Society of New South Wales.  His most recent books are Money in the Twenty-First Century: Cheap, Mobile, Digital (University of California Press), and Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism: How we crushed the curve but lost the race (UNSW Press).

Information

When: Wednesday 20 August 2025
Time: From 12.00pm until 1.00pm AEST (Time Converter)
Where: Online via Zoom
Cost: Free of Charge - register below

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The timing of this event is AEST (SYD/CBR/MEL).