The overall level of economic activity in the UK is dominated by the services sector and here the picture is more mixed. However, a good survey barometer of the services sector is probably provided by the purchasing managers’ index which is published every month. The latest survey shows that after a dip in December, services activity returned to growth in the early months of this year (see Chart 3). The rate of growth in the services sector indicated by recent business surveys is not as strong as we saw in the period before the recession. But that should not be a surprise. The services sector is more heavily dependent on domestic consumer demand than manufacturing, and therefore the impact of higher VAT and other imported price rises may be more noticeable in the short-term. It is also worth noting that services growth was particularly strong from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, growing much faster than manufacturing and other sectors of the UK economy.5 With the economy rebalancing and the manufacturing sector now performing more strongly, we should not expect services growth to return to the strong rate seen before the global financial crisis. 5  The output of the UK services sector rose at an annual rate of 3.8% between 1995 and 2007, compared with 2.9% average growth across the economy as a whole over this period.
Jon Nicolaisen: How important is it for a nation to have a payment system? Speech by Mr Jon Nicolaisen, Deputy Governor of Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway), at Finance Norway's payments conference, Oslo, 14 November 2019. * * * Please note that the text below may differ slightly from the actual presentation. The payment system and Norges Bank A nation needs to have a well-functioning payment system. Without fast, inexpensive and secure payments, a modern society grinds to a halt. Users today have access to payment methods that are dependent on large-scale IT systems to process payments efficiently. We need to ensure that the payment system can adapt to new technologies and meet the needs of business and consumers in the future. The Storting (Norwegian parliament) has assigned Norges Bank the task of promoting an efficient and secure payment system. This is clearly spelled out in the new Central Bank Act, which enters into force at the turn of the year. Norges Bank is the operator of the payment settlement system and supervises interbank payment systems. These operational roles may take on greater importance in the coming years. Let me point out two trends. First, we note increasing vertical integration in the payment market. Customer interface services are becoming more tightly linked to the underlying infrastructure. We saw an example here in Norway when Vipps merged with BankID and BankAxept. There is also a tendency for common contractual arrangements that were previously situated with industry organisations to be relocated to product companies.