How the BIS Approaches Public-Private Collaboration

In a speech delivered last week, Andréa Maechler, Deputy General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), outlines the BIS’s approach to public-private collaboration, emphasizing the distinct roles of consultation and partnership in addressing technological and operational challenges facing the global financial system.

Maechler argues that consultation should remain the foundation of engagement with the private sector, allowing central banks to draw on industry expertise while retaining responsibility for public policy. More intensive partnerships are appropriate when practical experimentation, coordination, and technical capabilities are needed to develop and test solutions. “The principle is straightforward: consult when you need to listen; partner when the solution requires hands-on collaboration to build and test,” she says.

She cites the Foreign Exchange Global Code as an example of collaboration to restore trust and strengthen standards of conduct following misconduct in foreign exchange markets. Developed jointly by central banks and market participants, the voluntary Code establishes shared expectations for market practices, with its effectiveness relying on industry ownership and adoption.

Maechler also highlights Project Agorá, which brings together eight central banks and more than 40 financial institutions to explore the use of tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits in cross-border wholesale payments. The project has developed a functioning prototype and conducted testing with real-value transactions to identify technical, operational, legal, and governance challenges. She stresses that experimentation generates evidence for policy decisions without committing authorities to adopting a particular technology or platform.

The BIS Innovation Hub supports this approach by enabling central banks to experiment with emerging technologies alongside private sector participants and researchers. Maechler emphasizes that such partnerships must be guided by public purpose, clear governance, technological neutrality, and demonstrable public value. Public authorities must retain policy responsibility, while private partners contribute expertise and implementation capabilities.

“Partnership is not the ultimate destination; better outcomes for the public interest are,” she concludes. “That is what we, collectively, must strive to achieve — at the BIS, in the central banking community and with the private financial sector.”