banks will negate one of the main purposes of the whole exercise, to reduce the risk inherent in systems in which banks are exposed to each other for a period of hours. banks would find other ways round the restriction which would be more risky. so central banks across europe will have scored an own goal. we shall need to look carefully at this issue as we move towards 1999. if restrictions were to be applied to out central banks which made target unattractive to banks in london, thereby encouraging them to use less secure cross - border mechanisms for euro payments, then we shall need to think about the other options we could adopt. one possible option might be to develop our own euro rtgs arrangements to allow quick, efficient and safe euro payments within the uk which would not rely on access to intra - day credit from the euro area. we would prefer a pan - european solution which, we strongly believe, would be in the interests of the eu as a whole in the long run. but one thing is clear. safe, efficient and competitive payment and settlement systems must be available in our own marketplace, and they will be. london has huge advantages as a strong and competitive financial centre in or out of emu. we are confident that those advantages will remain. the fact that more and more banks are centring their foreign exchange, corporate finance and investment business in london suggests that they share our confidence in the future of london. in these matters it always seems to me to be best to take one ’ s cue from ‘ revealed preferences ’ - where financial institutions choose to base themselves, taking account of all the uncertainties. those revealed preferences remain strongly in london ’ s favour. the preparations for emu are now hotting up. all over europe, boy scouts are packing their rucksacks with the kit they will need for this determined assault on what, in deference to its german roots, we should perhaps call the magic mountain, with apologies to thomas mann. the magic mountain is perhaps a more tactful title to choose than the confessions of felix krull, confidence man, or death in venice, as some others in london might suggest. i hope that this morning i have given you some insights into what we think should be in the central banker ’ s rucksack, and how the united kingdom will assess its own preparedness next year, when the time comes.

to the way we work, trade, consume and live. the fall of the berlin wall and the reforms initiated by deng xiaoping led to the integration of a third of humankind into the global labour force. those workers are increasingly linked by global supply chains that have spread from goods to services. in parallel, an explosion of technological innovations has brought access, at the click of a virtual button, to the sum of human knowledge to three - anda - half billion people ( chart 1 ). all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / publications / pages / speeches / default. aspx the deepening of the symbiotic relationship between global markets and technological progress has lifted more than a billion people out of poverty ( chart 2 ), while a series of technological advances have fundamentally enriched our lives. chart 1 : 3 ½ billion people have internet access chart 2 : 1 billion fewer people live on less than $ 1. 90 a day since the early 1980s billions of people billions of people 3. 5 2. 0 1. 8 3. 0 1. 6 2. 5 1. 4 1. 2 2. 0 1. 0 1. 5 0. 8 0. 6 1. 0 0. 4 0. 5 number of poor at $ 1. 90 a day ( 2011 ppp ) 0. 2 0. 0 0. 0 source : internet live stats. an internet user is defined as an individual who can access the internet at home, via any device type and connection. 2015 and 2016 are estimates. source : world bank. $ 1. 90 a day is the world bank ’ s current global poverty line. globally, since 1960, real per capita gdp has risen more than two - and - a - half times ( chart 3 ), average ii incomes have begun to converge, and life expectancy has increased by nearly two decades ( chart 4 ). despite such immense progress, many citizens in advanced economies are facing heightened uncertainty, lamenting a loss of control and losing trust in the system. to them, measures of aggregate progress bear little relation to their own experience. rather than a new golden era, globalisation is associated with low wages, insecure employment, stateless corporations and striking inequalities. these anxieties have been compounded by the twin crises of solvency and integrity at the heart of finance. when the financial crisis hit, the world ’ s largest banks were shown to be operating in a “