We have to decentralise finance

It’s time to reverse the major trend seen since the 2008 financial crisis—centralisation. That’s the opinion of Alex Lipton, an academic and former Wall Street quant who now works at fintech start-up Sila. According to Lipton, our guest on the latest New Money Review podcast, centralisation has occurred at several levels: at central banks, which are taking on more and more balance sheet risk; at central clearing counterparties (CCPs), where derivatives market risk is increasingly concentrated; and at commercial banks, where the largest firms have been getting larger still. Decentralisation will be a generational project, warns Lipton. But it’s now time to start rebuilding, he says, even if the shape of the future system is not yet clear.