“Unquestionably beneficial” because it has resulted in a broader range of services, at lower prices, and more accessible terms than ever before. And above all, “fundamentally uncertain” because those who have to work out the implications for strategic business or public policy decisions find it practically impossible to predict how the system will evolve.
Who, for example, forecast in mid-1980 that the UK “Big Bang” would so sharply reduce the influence of traditional British financial firms. Who forecast in the early 1990s that centres of financial influence in the United States would arise in Madison, Wisconsin and Charlotte, North Carolina?