Second, although there is purely national infrastructure in most countries, the main pieces of cross border financial infrastructure are truly global. For example:   CLS operating out of New York processes nearly a million FX transactions in 18 currencies for over 60 members worldwide on a daily basis, with an average daily value of $    4  The SWIFT messaging service based in Belgium services more than 11,000 institutions worldwide, operating in over 200 jurisdictions. In 2015 it processed approximately 6.1bn messages.   Euroclear, based in Belgium, provides services in 51 settlement currencies for more than 2,000 clients in over 90 countries.   5  6  Clearstream, based in Luxembourg, serves 2,500 customers in 110 countries, settling more than 250,000 transactions daily. 7  4  https://www.cls-group.com/Membership/Community/Pages/CLSMembers.aspx https://www.cls-group.com/About/Pages/default.aspx https://www.cls-group.com/MC/Pages/NewsArticle.aspx?nid=187 5 $ 6 https://www.euroclear.com/dam/PDFs/Corporate/Euroclear-Credentials.pdf 7 http://www.clearstream.com/clearstream-en/about-clearstream/who-we-are 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  4    CME Group in Chicago has customers in more than 150 countries and handles 3 billion contracts worth approximately $ quadrillion annually.   8  Eurex Clearing in Germany has more than 180 clearing members in 17 countries, clearing contracts denominated principally in Euro, and Swiss Franc.   9  LCH SwapClear clears more than 95% of the global cleared OTC interest rate swap market, has over 100 clearing members, over half of which are based outside of the EEA, and clears in 18 currencies.
But this divergence in demand may help to explain why, at least on impact, the pandemic has depressed inflation by a bit less than we and others anticipated when it began. Various things have contributed to gap between real GDP and retail spending Expenditure switching certainly isn’t the only reason for the contrast in Chart 1. I want first to run through a number of other things that have probably contributed to it. One is the weakness of spending – on durables in particular – during the lockdown in the spring. At that time there were many things people were simply unable to buy. For durable stuff, much of that spending is likely to have been delayed rather than cancelled. If you needed a new fridge or a new car in March, you presumably still needed one in June, when the lockdown began to be eased. One would’ve expected most of that catch-up to occur during the summer but some of it may also have leaked into the autumn and early winter. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  4  Second, part of the drop in GDP reflects an unusually large decline in the measured real output of public services, something that has no consequences for people’s incomes or their ability to spend. To construct these estimates the Office for National Statistics uses detailed information on things like the numbers of pupils in school and operations in hospitals.