18  An alternative explanation for this predictive relation is that rising house prices relax households’ borrowing constraints, allowing them to take on more debt. The two hypotheses cannot be disentangled by looking at plain correlations. Miles and Pillonca (2008) suggest that expectations of capital gains played a significant role in driving housing credit in Spain, Sweden, Belgium and the UK before the crisis.
These digital images will be transmitted electronically by the presenting bank to the paying bank through the Clearing House. There will be no change for the consumer. It is in the internal plumbing of the system, in the invisible parts, that the change will happen. Clearing will be done from an IT-enabled platform; powerful servers linking all the banks will take over the process.