The ACH approach would have offered the advantage of there being only one link for cross-border payments per country. Unfortunately, this solution was sacrificed to the short-term interests of the banking groups. The totally unsatisfactory level of technological standardisation in Europe has remained largely unchanged. Instead, individual groups, such as the cooperative and savings bank sector, have now established their own linking systems.
In the case of Luxembourg, the legal retirement age was introduced in 1925 for men and in 1931 for women. The quite generous promises were to be measured against an average life expectancy of 55 years only at that time! Steel and mining represented 1/3 of GDP, more in terms of employment.