Bank of England and IMF bosses warn of cyber threat to trust in financial system

Kristalina Georgieva says online fraud could lead people to opt out of system and turn to'shoeboxes under their bed' The heads of the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund have issued a stark warning that rising cyber-attacks risk undermining trust in the financial system. Speaking on a panel about online fraud at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok, the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, pointed to alarming headlines about self-replicating AI agents hijacking personal devices, and the French supermarket hack that heated fridges up to 50C . "If you try to say what's at the heart of this debate about AI - for me, it's about trust in technology and it's about human control to achieve that trust in technology," he said. Pointing to the key importance of technology in underpinning today's financial system, he added: "If we don't have trust in money, we don't operate as a society." Echoing his concerns, the IMF's managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, said the toll of cyber-fraud was now so great that people could decide to opt out of the formal financial system altogether.