Bank of England and IMF Heads Warn of Cyber Threats to Financial System

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey and IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva warned that increasing cyberattacks risk undermining trust in the financial system. The statement was made during a panel discussion on fraud at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok on October 14, 2026.

Bailey pointed to alarming headlines about self-replicating AI agents taking over personal devices and a French incident where hackers raised the temperature in supermarket refrigerators to 50°C.

"For me, at the center of this AI discussion is trust in technology and the human control that allows this trust to be achieved," he said. "If we don't have trust in money, we don't function as a society."

Georgieva noted that the scale of cyber fraud has grown so much that people might decide to exit the formal financial system altogether. "I was born and raised on the other side of the Iron Curtain. We didn't trust the system. I kept dollars in a box under my bed. And I fear that today, if we don't get ahead of this curve, many people will have boxes under their beds." According to her, the threat is particularly acute for people on the periphery of the financial system.

The statements followed an IMF warning on Tuesday: the likelihood of a major cyberattack has raised the level of threat to global financial stability to elevated, alongside rising borrowing costs and the risk of a collapse in AI company stocks.

Bailey emphasized that fraud increasingly occurs through social media and apps, and called on major tech companies to take responsibility, comparing the situation to the legal status of newspapers, which are accountable for the accuracy of their publications. "We've come to an extreme position: platforms are open to everyone, and there is no real accountability for what's posted on them. Guess what? Everything is there: the good, the bad, the extremely ugly, and the downright criminal. I'm not saying, 'You're bad.' I'm saying: responsibility lies with everyone."

Bailey urged the use of the same tools as cybercriminals to protect the system: "This technology arms the attack, but it can also arm the defense, and it must do so."

The panel discussion was dedicated to the launch of a new set of international principles for protection against cyber fraud in financial institutions – the Bangkok blueprint.