Austrian Central Bank Governor in San Francisco

The delegation at Google.

Photo: Isabella Thomas

Mr. Robert Holzmann, governor of the Austrian Central Bank, vice-governor Mr. Gottfried Haber, director Mr. Thomas Steiner, director Mr. Franz Partsch and deputy-head of communications, Mr. Rudolf Kaschnitz, visited San Francisco and the Bay Area on June 20th as part of a longer learning journey to the Americas that had previously led them to Brazil and Chile.

The delegation met with the president of the San Francisco Fed, Ms. Mary C. Daly, where discussions about generative Artificial Intelligence applications in payments as well as the future of monetary policy were part of the agenda. Both sides appreciated the input on alignments and differences between the American and the European perspective on the economic outlook.

Next on the agenda were meetings in Silicon Valley, including Apple and Google. At both tech giants, the main topic were digital payment services, the implementation of generative AI-solutions as facilitator and other topics such as anti-money laundering. The discussions were extremely fruitful and led to exchanges about where they think the world of finance is heading towards. Essential information on the latest in AI-tools was gathered and will surely put to good use on the other side of the Atlantic.