Checkout can be eliminated. The customer, not cash, will reign supreme. 8  In the UK, intangible investment rose above tangible investment in the early 2000s, and stood at 11% as a share of output in 2014 compared with 10% for tangible investment. Investment in intangibles also exceeded that in tangibles in the US, Sweden and Finland [on average over 1999-2003], but not in other European countries including German, Italy and Spain. See Haskel, J and Westlake, W (2017), ‘Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy’, Princeton University Press; and Goodridge, P R, Haskel, J and Wallis, G (2016), ‘Accounting for the UK Productivity Puzzle: A Decomposition and Predictions’, Economica, Vol. 85, Issue 339. 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  Second, RTGS is being re-configured to lower the excessive costs of cross-border payments. To this end, 9  two private PSPs joined earlier this year. In parallel, the Bank is working to connect RTGS and the systems run by other central banks. And we have just begun collaborating with the Bank of Canada, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and several private-sector firms to improve inter-bank cross-border payments, including initiatives based on distributed ledger. The potential returns are large. At present, cross-border payments can cost ten times more than domestic ones. 10  We estimate that in the UK alone there is scope to realise annual savings of over £ million.
He believed “the policy was the one and only policy which ultimately would place the City and the country again on that eminence which it occupied before the war”. Such was his confidence that Norman mentioned only once, in passing, that “the policy” in question was to “attempt to regain the gold standard”, and he spent no time at all explaining what, apart from normalcy, would be achieved by it. Of course, this return to past certainties would eventually plunge the country into deflation and a deep recession. The old policy was not suited to the new normal and the UK was forced to abandon it a few years later. After all, what is normal when there are tectonic shifts? This dinner may look traditional, but its attendees have always recognised that the most longstanding and revered tradition of the City is its ability to anticipate, adapt to and accelerate change for the common good. That is why the UK’s financial system remains both a national asset and a global public good. Domestically, there are over 1 million financial services jobs, two-thirds outside London. Financial services run a trade surplus of 3% of GDP, while the rest of the economy runs a deficit almost twice as large. Last year, the UK financial system channelled £ billion in finance to UK businesses and helped 700,000 households to purchase homes. It provides pensions to 21 million people and insures the contents of 20 million homes.