On 3 December 2024, the Bank of England (BoE) published a speech entitled ‘Once more unto the breach’, which was delivered by its Head of Foreign Exchange Division, Phillippe Lintern, at the FX Markets Europe event.

In the speech, Mr Lintern reflects on the lessons learnt from the history of the FX market and discusses the upcoming review of the FX Global Code, which is due to be published shortly by the Global Foreign Exchange Committee. He also flags the importance of market-wide adoption of the updated Code and urges firms to either sign up to the Code (if they have not already) or to re-attest to the updated Code.

Mr Lintern also highlights the need for firms to review their FX settlement risk and adopt the best risk mitigation possible. He notes that this has been perceived as a sell-side issue, but warns that ‘if we want to reduce FX settlement risk across the market then all participants need to act’.