On the demand side it seems plausible that, as people get richer, more of their income can be spent on financial services, including debt servicing, as proportionately less needs to be spent on necessities. Associated with this, the relative value of scarce assets that are financed by debt might be expected to rise over time.
And the combination of increasing wealth and greater longevity in our societies is likely to generate rising demand for services in the wealth management and retirement income sector. On the supply side, the key point is that finance is an information-intensive industry. Its key outputs depend on the capacity to store, analyse and transmit information securely.