This book provides a comparative analysis of the several types of banking structure and the ways in which banks undertake their business. It surveys central banking arrangements in a number of countries. Against an historical background, it describes banking systems ranging from the so-called ‘unit banking’ of the USA to the branch banking arrangements that derive from British experience, as well as many systems in between. The business of banking is analysed comparatively within the framework of a simplified bank balance sheet, special attention being given to industrial banking and to assets and liabilities management. It explores how money markets function and, within this framework, how central banks operate and attempt to implement monetary and credit policy. The book includes the results of extensive new research, part of which involved interviewing many key figures throughout the banking industry.

This book provides a comparative analysis of the several types of banking structure and the ways in which banks undertake their business. It surveys central banking arrangements in a number of countries. Against an historical background, it describes banking systems ranging from the so-called ‘unit banking’ of the USA to the branch banking arrangements that derive from British experience, as well as many systems in between. The business of banking is analysed comparatively within the framework of a simplified bank balance sheet, special attention being given to industrial banking and to assets and liabilities management. It explores how money markets function and, within this framework, how central banks operate and attempt to implement monetary and credit policy. The book includes the results of extensive new research, part of which involved interviewing many key figures throughout the banking industry.

This book provides a comparative analysis of the several types of banking structure and the ways in which banks undertake their business. It surveys central banking arrangements in a number of countries. Against an historical background, it describes banking systems ranging from the so-called 'unit banking' of the USA to the branch banking arrangements that derive from British experience, as well as many systems in between. The business of banking is analysed comparatively within the framework of a simplified bank balance sheet, special attention being given to industrial banking and to assets and liabilities management. It explores how money markets function and, within this framework, how central banks operate and attempt to implement monetary and credit policy. The book includes the results of extensive new research, part of which involved interviewing many key figures throughout the banking industry.

The study of financial history has never been more important. This volume focuses on theories about the relationship of financial markets to the rest of the economy. Searching out information on financial institutions and markets from the past, this work tests theories from the 1980s and 90s with this data, mainly in two fields of economics: financial structure and performance and economic development. Understanding and testing the relationship between money and credit and the level of output in the economy, the author emphasizes, may help predict or prevent business cycles and even make it possible to increase the rate of development and growth of an economy. Although this volume focuses on one geographical and historical area of the US economy, the lessons and implications are relevant for the global economy of the 21st century.

The Tokyo market has often been a difficult financial environment for the non-Japanese to understand. This volume, written for an international readership provides a study of the financial centre behind one of the world’s largest economies.

This book examines the fundamental nature of banking in the economy of the 1970s and 80s, arguing that banking cannot be properly understood unless it is regarded as the retailing of financial services. In analysing the nature of banking the book demonstrates how banking might operate without regulatory constraints; surveys the patterns of regulatory constraint in a wide range of economies; analysis the effects of these various forms of constraint on the operation of a previously unregulated bank; examines the move to multinational banking; explores risks peculiar to multinational banking, whilst providing a diagrammatic illustration of those risks. When originally published this was one of the first books to treat banking from both a theoretical and empirical perspective and is unique in reviewing the case of a completely unregulated commercial bank and following the progression of banking through to the multinational stage.

Uniquely written from inside the banking world this book gives a comprehensive account of the organization and activities of the major central European banks during the 1980s. Each of the individually authored chapters has been written to a common pattern in order to facilitate reference and comparison. Each also contains an annex with a specimen return of the bank in question and brief explanatory notes on the various items.

This is a clear guide to the German financial system. It begins by outlining its historical development, emphasising the growth of close ties between the banking system and industry, and goes on to describe in details the nature of the credit institutions in general and the money and capital markets. The book emphasizes the crucial role played by the autonomy of the Bundesbank and it explains with clear illustrations the instruments available to it to conduct monetary policy. It analyses the type of monetary target adopted by the Bundesbank in the early 1970s and deals with the ‘transferability’ of the West German financial system to other countries. Wherever relevant, parallels and differences between that system and the ones operating in the US and UK are pointed out.

This book was written at a time when the market for government stocks in London, the gilt-edged market of the title, had undergone a period of rapid innovation in the forms of its instruments – index-linked stocks, variable rate stocks, and other new types – and of methods of issue. This had been the response of a government that had needed to fund a massive public sector borrowing requirement despite its attempts to slash public expenditure. In the same period the opening of the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE), with its 20-year gilt contract, had introduced a new method for hedging risk for investment managers. This book charts and analyses these developments.

The role of international banks within the developed economies has come under increasingly hostile public scrutiny, yet little attention has been paid to the structure and purpose of the banks themselves. Most existing studies concentrate on the part played by international banks as intermediaries in the domestic and international economy, failing to consider the foremost concern of the banks themselves – their success as business enterprises. This book examines the practical problems faced by the Universal Multinational banks (UMNBs) in the fields of strategic planning and business development. It explains the common constraints encountered by the UMNBs, showing that, whether they like it or not, current market pressures are governing their policies in all the developed economies. Through studying the management structures and business policies of these banks this book provides a much clearer picture of their activities in the world economy. Initially, it concentrates on the UMNBs of the USA since they have provided a strategic model for other global banking concerns. The UMNBs of Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Switzerland are then discussed to establish their similarities and differences: case studies are included at the end of each chapter to illustrate and reinforce the points made in the preceding text. Although written in 1984 the author successfully predicted many of the subsequent developments in the field of information technology and competition in world markets, which led to the emergence of global financial enterprises.