Economic growth has been driven increasingly by domestic demand rather than net exports, as might be expected at this stage of the cycle. Private consumption and stockbuilding have been the main factors underlying domestic demand to date. The favourable conjunctural situation has started to feed through into the labour market, although improvements here have in some countries been too slow to appear.
In the non-bank based model the contractual relationship is with a non-bank service provider such as a mobile network operator or an issuer of stored-value payment instruments. Customers exchange cash at a retail agent in return for an electronic record of value. This virtual account is stored on the service provider’s server.