In fact, it was predicted that: “Whatever form the centralisation of payments may take, the control of money will remain in the hands of central banks”. The risks of bank disintermediation and the challenges for monetary policy are, however, not only central to today’s analysis, but have also been discussed at length in the past.
Economic historians and central bankers have extensively examined the relationship between public and private money. For example, in Marcello De Cecco’s book on Money and the Empire (1975) we read of the substantial efforts of English banks to prevent the Bank of England from collecting deposits during the XIX century.