London Bank Research Articles

“We Make It Work Because We Must”: Narrating the Creation of an Urban Indigenous Food Bank in London, Ontario, Canada

This research draws from a community-engaged methodology and qualitative interviews to narrate the creation and daily operations of an Indigenous food bank in London, Ontario, Canada. In-depth interviews (n = 10) with program leaders, volunteers, and recipients detailed the day-to-day operations, including where and how foods were collected and distributed, and a preliminary analysis of the meanings and challenges of the food bank. The key strengths of the food bank are its focus on cultural safety, provision of traditional foods, and its community-led approach. The limitations of the food bank relate to the structure of the workload and sustainability of program funding. Community-led research with Indigenous non-profit organizations, such as that presented here, offer approaches that are critically important for creating culturally relevant and inclusive data that can both explain and address Indigenous health inequities, and provide the evidence needed to advocate for change.

Cyber and the City: Securing London's Banks in the Computer Age by Ashley Sweetman

Reviewed by: Cyber and the City: Securing London's Banks in the Computer Age by Ashley Sweetman Jacob Ward (bio) Cyber and the City: Securing London's Banks in the Computer Age By Ashley Sweetman. Cham: Springer, 2022. Pp. vii + 230. Ashley Sweetman's Cyber and the City is valuable reading for any historian researching the intersections of finance and digital technology. The book investigates computer security in London's clearing banks from the 1960s to the 1990s across six chapters. Three "overview" chapters provide wider technological, political, and industrial context on financial computer security from 1960 to 1977, and three "case study" chapters take deeper dives into the role of security in developing three important financial systems still in use: the Bankers' Automated Clearing Services (BACS), the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), and the Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS). Sweetman argues that banks thought about computer security in two ways. First, banks valued confidentiality, integrity, and availability as key virtues of a secure system. Second, banks upheld these virtues by building "resilience" into their systems. Banks assumed that security breaches would happen, and so security measures should mitigate against this to preserve confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Overall, Sweetman concludes that there were no significant shifts or ruptures in this period, which was instead defined by "consensus and continuity," both with predigital and present approaches to financial security. Cyber and the City's greatest strength is the new histories that it documents. Sweetman has researched several archives and cases that have not received historical attention. In so doing, he gives new insight into the development not just of computer security in finance but also the development of the financial systems themselves. BACS and CHAPS remain crucial to British banking, and SWIFT, as Russia's exclusion in 2022 shows, is globally important geopolitically as well as financially. Their histories are fundamental to understanding the past and present of finance's digital infrastructure, and so Sweetman's book will be an invaluable reference work for their histories. [End Page 613] Furthermore, the book challenges the idea that cybersecurity is about hacks and cyberattacks. Sweetman shows how financial security was more concerned with accidents and faults than malicious attacks and that even when focusing on attacks, banks and security analysts spent much more time concerned with physical threats such as arson and bombings. For example, banks saw the destruction of BACS's computer center as their main security threat and so enacted both physical and technical measures to make BACS resilient to damage. Component failure was a major concern across all three of Sweetman's case studies, and so computer security in these systems often meant creating hardware and software redundancies. In Cyber and the City, computer security is a story of the mundane, material practices of maintenance and contingency planning. It is this perspective, however, that raises some weaknesses in the book. The book does not explicitly analyze the materiality of computer security, and this is instead my own interpretation. Though the book is a fabulous documentation of computer security in finance, it never places this history within the bigger picture. For example, the growing scholarship on repair and maintenance, spearheaded by Andrew Russell and Lee Vinsel, would help Sweetman articulate with more depth what he means when he describes "resilience," especially to physical faults and attacks, as the key approach in computer security in British finance. The extensive work on the materiality of financial markets by Donald Mackenzie and his collaborators would also help here, especially Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra's Automating Finance (2019), which analyzes how "market engineers" transformed British finance across the same period. In Cyber and the City, the materiality of financial security seems key to the smooth functioning of financial markets, but the nuances of this relationship could be thought through more. As it stands, the book does not discuss how this history might develop our understanding of financial markets and how engineers, technologies, and security analysts make them work. This book could therefore present a richer account that interprets how this history fits into the wider scholarship. Nevertheless, for the histories that it brings to light, it will be an important work for...

Locating state capitalism: Financial centres and the internationalisation of Chinese banks in London

This paper examines the internationalisation of Chinese state-owned commercial banks in London's financial centre from the 2010s onwards. These banks have transformed from primarily servicing Chinese state-owned enterprises to making up four of the largest banks globally by balance sheet and undertaking a range of operations including RMB clearing and cross border settlement and yet their future international trajectory remains uncertain. My analysis positions Chinese bank internationalisation within the wider project of RMB internationalisation, arguing that financial centres can serve as important methodological, empirical and conceptual entry points into understanding how state and market interests play out unevenly across time and space. By focusing on place-based policy experimentation in London, my analysis points to the entangled, multi layered and often contradictory formations of actually existing state capitalism.

Performance-Based Framework to Prioritize Adaptive Reuse Gallery Design: A Case Study ofTate Modern Towards Architectural and Cultural Engagement along London Riverfront

Galleries today are an architectural stamp for educational institutions as well as a versatile showplace for communities and corporations. We are all drawn to a gallery for different reasons and it has become a central hub for gathering, learning, exploring in nature. Tate Modern, an adaptive reuse art gallery from its previous function as old power station in Londonhas been studied and selected for this research due to its explicit historical form for the interior and exterior and its location adjacent toThames River. Critical number of research has been done of the industrial buildings which incorporate the adaptive reuses concept on the impact on the universal building practice and economy. However, there lack of studies with regardsto how adaptive reuse building portrays a significant impact to riverfrontand promenadedevelopment planningnearby thevicinity.Therefore, this paper aim to investigate the impact of adaptive reuse industrial gallery to cityscape development which include existence structures such as promenade, bridges and related structure around the vicinity. The study exploredmethodology through secondary type of data by articles and writings involved with architectural modifications made by previous and recent architectsinvolvedin the Tate Modern Gallery andits current ramificationof cultural network establishment to both sides ofthenorth and south bank of London. This research thus will suggest the initial framework in reconstructing an old industrial building to be as a gallery with is design based alterations and recommendations. As an outcome, thesefindingson adaptive reuseindustrial librarysuggest space revivification, construction wastereduction and urban sustainability that promote a new label urban sprawl significance thatsupport the tourism, industry and civic engagement for the Thames riverfrontbased on the historical building preservation.

Neda Genova in Conversation with Mijke van der Drift: A Conversation on Transfeminism as Anti-Colonial Politics

For this piece we were provoked by an anti-trans moment that took place during the School of Politics and Critique in September 2020. Instead of engaging in a mere “rebuttal” of anti-trans discourse and its reductive, exclusionary claims, with this text we aim to open up a space of exchange and learning that takes the form of a feminist conversation. We discuss the historical and political entrenchment of colonial, capitalist and anti-trans projects to emphasise why a solid trans politics will always hold an anti-colonial agenda to the fore. Critically appraising some unfortunate intellectual and political impasses—as the capturing of feminist politics in schemata of biological determinism or the complicity of white bourgeois feminism in anti-Blackness and colonial exploitation—we shed light on the emancipatory potential of radical transfeminism. The conversation draws on lessons from the writings and practice of many engaged in formulating the stakes of black feminist, anti-colonial and trans politics of solidarity, thus actualizing the insight that we never think or act in isolation from one another. Author(s): Neda Genova and Mijke van der Drift Title (English): Neda Genova in Conversation with Mijke van der Drift: A Conversation on Transfeminism as Anti-Colonial Politics Journal Reference: Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 17, No. 2-3 (Winter 2020) Publisher: Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities - Skopje Page Range: 102-108 Page Count: 7 Citation (English): Neda Genova and Mijke van der Drift, “Neda Genova in Conversation with Mijke van der Drift: A Conversation on Transfeminism as Anti-Colonial Politics,” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 17, No. 2-3 (Winter 2020): 102-108. Author Biographies Mijke van der Drift, Royal College of Art/University of Cambridge Philosopher and educator Mijke van der Drift works on ethics as a focal point in a multi-disciplinary research about social transformation. Van der Drift is tutor at the Royal College of Art, London and the Royal Academy of Art, the Hague. They are a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge in 2020-21, as part of the Revolutionary Papers project, in collaboration with the London School of Economics and the University of the Western Cape. In addition, van der Drift is currently working on their book Non normative Ethics: The Dynamics of Trans Formation. They obtained a Ph.D. from Goldsmiths, University of London. Their current project focuses on multilogical ethics and generosity, and is provisionally titled The Logic of Loss in Bonding. The book chapter “Radical Transfeminism: Trans as Anti-Static Ethics Escaping Neoliberal Encapsulation” co-written with Nat Raha is recently published in New Feminist Studies: Twenty-first-century Critical Interventions, ed. Jennifer Cooke, with Cambridge University Press. Neda Genova, London Bank University/Goldsmiths Neda Genova teaches at Goldsmiths University of London and London South Bank University and holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths. Her research is situated at the intersection of post-communist studies and media and cultural theory. She is interested in feminist and postcolonial theory, the politics of humour and laughter and post-communist digital culture. She is a member of the editorial collective of the Bulgarian-language activist-academic magazine dVERSIA (dВЕРСИЯ)

Does supervisors’ mindfulness keep employees from engaging in cyberloafing out of compassion at work?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine whether the appearance of cyberloafing at work, that is, the use of the company’s internet connection for personal purposes, may be due to a workplace that lacks mindfulness and compassion. The authors first hypothesize that supervisors’ mindfulness is related to the mindfulness of their direct followers, and that both are related to employees’ compassion at work. The authors also hypothesize that compassion mediates the link between supervisors’ and followers’ mindfulness and cyberloafing, and that empathic concern mediates the link from compassion to cyberloafing.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire was distributed to followers working in groups of three with the same leader in all of the 100 banks in London (UK). Supervisors and their direct reports (n=100) and 100 triads of followers (n=300) participated. The authors applied structural equation modeling (SEM) for analyses.FindingsResults showed that supervisors’ and followers’ mindfulness were significantly related to each other and to compassion at work, but compassion acted as a mediator only in the case of supervisors’ mindfulness. Empathic concern mediated the compassion-cyberloafing link.Research limitations/implicationsThe study could suffer from mono-method/source bias and specificities of banks and their work processes can raise concerns about the generalizability of the results.Practical implicationsFindings suggest that mindfulness training may facilitate compassion at work, which, in turn, will restrain the occurrence of cyberloafing at work.Originality/valueThis is the first study to analyze how and why employees refrain from harming their organizations out of compassion.

Joseph Banks and Charles Blagden: cultures of advancement in the scientific worlds of late eighteenth-century London and Paris.

This paper explores the relationship between Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, and Charles Blagden, secretary to Banks and the Society between 1784 and 1797. Blagden is often referred to as one of Banks's key assistants, as a trusted adviser, collaborator and source of information. Yet, despite his significance, the nature of Blagden's association with Banks has not been explored in detail. This paper traces the development of their sometimes tumultuous relationship, exposing it as one in which Blagden, an aspiring gentleman, sought Banks's patronage to further his career and social ambitions. Key to Blagden's strategy was his role as a source of information for Banks from Paris. Yet, while Blagden pursued patronage with Banks in London, on visits to Paris he encountered a situation where merit, in terms of published scientific outputs, determined one's membership of the scientific community. Exploration of these conflicting cultures of advancement-patronage versus advancement through merit-here informs a re-assessment of scientific exchange at a key moment in Blagden's career, the 1783 'water controversy'. The limitations of Banks's patronage for ambitious clients are also explored, in the context of a rupture in the relationship between Blagden and Banks at the end of the 1780s.

The UK’s banking FDI flows and Total British FDI: a dynamic BREXIT analysis

The City of London has been the global leader for the provision of international banking services since the 1980s when Thatcher-era deregulation, followed by the EU single market program, stimulated big international FDI inflows – mainly of US banks – into the UK. The “single passport” rule allowed international banks in the UK to serve the whole of the EU28 market from London whose supply-side dynamics contributed to economic growth in the UK and a rising output share of the UK banking system in British GDP. With the expected BREXIT, there are serious challenges for the City since the passporting of banks will end and the regulatory framework will be adjusted; EU equivalence rules for UK banks that might be valid after the implementation of BREXIT cannot be a substitute for passporting so that lower FDI inflows and higher FDI outflows in the banking sector should be expected; inflow dynamics should also be shaped by international MA as regards the latter, quasi-tariff-jumping FDI outflows from the UK can be expected where the FDI of City of London banks could go primarily to the EU27/Eurozone or the US. The empirical findings confirm the expected FDI pattern for the UK banking sector – overall FDI inflows in the wake of the BREXIT referendum have increased, in line with the Froot-Stein effect, while FDI inflows to the UK banking sector have declined.

Using Alienation at Work to Explain Why Managers' Dishonesty Does Not Lead to Firm Performance

Although prior studies provide growing evidence that managers' dishonesty is negatively related to firm performance, the reasons for this relationship remain unclear. The purpose of this study is to model the steps in the effect of the manager dishonesty on firm performance. Our model hypothesizes that followers' feelings of work alienation are mediators that explain why managers' dishonesty is negatively related to aspects of a company's financial performance (i.e., profit and growth). We used multi‐source survey data collected from 100 banks in London and analyzed 100 team leaders and 100 triads of followers (n = 300). Results confirmed that managers' dishonesty is related to financial performance, and they supported powerlessness (i.e., employee lack of control over their work) as the only studied element of work alienation that mediated in this link. Findings suggest that, when faced with managers' dishonesty, employees lose control over the product of their labor or the work process, which causes firm failure.

Association of Autonomic Dysfunction With Disease Progression and Survival in Parkinson Disease

Evidence suggests that development of autonomic dysfunction (AutD) may negatively affect disease course and survival in patients with synucleinopathies. However, the few available studies on Parkinson disease (PD) have conflicting results, comprise a small number of patients, have short follow-up periods, and lack pathologic confirmation of the diagnosis. To examine the association of time of onset of AutD with disease progression and survival in PD. This retrospective review of clinical data from 100 consecutive patients with an autopsy-confirmed diagnosis of PD from the archives of the Queen Square Brain Bank in London, United Kingdom, from January 1, 2006, to June 3, 2016, included patients with PD regularly seen by hospital specialists (neurologists or geriatricians) in the United Kingdom throughout their disease until death. Patients with dementia before or within 1 year after onset of motor symptoms, monogenic forms of PD, comorbidities that affect autonomic function, a coexisting neuropathologic diagnosis, or insufficient clinical information were excluded. Survival and time from diagnosis to specific disease milestones were calculated to assess disease progression. Autonomic dysfunction was defined as autonomic failure at autonomic function testing or 2 of the following symptoms: urinary symptoms, constipation, upper gastrointestinal tract dysfunction, orthostatic hypotension, sweating abnormalities, or erectile dysfunction. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression models on the risk of a disease milestone and death were used. A total of 100 patients (60 [60.0%] male; mean [SD] age at diagnosis, 63.9 [10.3] years; mean [SD] disease duration, 14.6 [7.7] years) were studied. Autonomic dysfunction developed in 85 patients (mean [SD] time from diagnosis, 6.7 [7.7] years) and was associated with older age at diagnosis, male sex, poor initial levodopa treatment response, and postural instability and gait difficulty motor PD subtype in linear regression analysis, but staging of α-synuclein pathologic changes was unrelated. Earlier AutD increased the risk of reaching the first milestone (hazard ratio, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.83-0.89; P < .001) and shortened survival (hazard ratio, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.88-0.96; P < .001). Older age at diagnosis and poorer levodopa treatment response were the other factors associated with shorter survival in adjusted multivariate analysis. Earlier AutD is associated with a more rapid development of disease milestones and shorter survival in patients with PD.

The Cosmopolitan Coin: What Modernists Make of Money

The Cosmopolitan Coin:What Modernists Make of Money Nicky Marsh (bio) "Ive just got your note about Je ne parle pas. No, I certainly won't agree to those excisions if there were 500000000 copies in existence. They can keep their old £40 and be hanged to them. Shall I pick the eyes out of a story for £40. I'm furious with Sadler. No, Ill never agree." —Katherine Mansfield to John Middleton Murry, April 6, 19201 "I feel I was too undisciplined about my story & Constable. I leave it to you. Youre my Cricket. If you agree to what they say—why then, alls well (and I DO want the money). Je t'aime." —Katherine Mansfield to John Middleton Murry, April 7, 19202 This exchange of letters between Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry hints at a story familiar to both writers and lovers: to negotiations over independence, to a desperate weighing of what is free against what must be paid for, to a pattern of rebukes followed by carefully calculated gifts. The letters are typical of the lovers' correspondence, which details a series of increasingly complex transactions between them regarding both how to get money (through allowances, loans, publications, work as a reviewer, an actress, a manicurist, even, very briefly, a kitchen help in a bombarded underground Paris kitchen) and how to spend money (on temporary homes, journeys, printing presses, dubious medicines, and the ever-ubiquitous flowers). The complexities of Mansfield's relationship to money were evident in the different meanings and names she gave to it. The money she gave to Murry was an "egg in the nest," a down payment on a fertile future that she knew that they were unlikely to share, whilst she imagined that Murry kept his own money in a "wild thyme bank," making her the Titania to his Oberon and the future a passionate but disturbed dream.3 Her recurring fears about Murry's fidelity were reported as a nightmare in which he gives away the money he earns from writing, a nightmare from which she awakes "terrified lest this might happen. Never let it" because this money is his "blood. Never give it away."4 The money given to her by the ever-loyal Ida Baker, however, is merely "T" (tea) because it is "such a comfort."5 The meanings given to these different types of money indicate, of course, very different rates of exchange, rates that are affected as much by the psychodynamics of sexual desire as by the political and cultural dynamics of class, race, and gender. Murry's "blood" money is defined by restriction—it can only be exchanged for its full value with Mansfield—whereas the "tea" that flows between her and Baker is framed through a casual sociality that explicitly resists such exclusivities. Mansfield (living on a New Zealand-denominated allowance from her father and moving between Bavaria, England, France, and Italy in the 1910s and 1920s) also had a literal experience of such differential rates of exchange. Yet the accounts that her letters provide of these exchanges often suggest a surprisingly similar set of investments in them. Sometimes, for example, Baker would be sent to several different banks to accomplish a single transaction at maximum financial advantage whereas, at other times, Mansfield would lose money on the exchanges because Kay (the manager of the New Zealand Bank in London and a substitute for her own banking father for much of her adult life) "had taken such pains to arrange the matter and as he said 'tickle them up,'" a "[s]entimentality" which cost her "22 lire. It won't do. I always feel people's feelings are being hurt. I suppose they are not really & Im very silly."6 Yet scholarship has had surprisingly little to say regarding both how modernists assigned symbolic meaning to money or what these symbolic meanings suggest about the larger issue of how the discipline itself understands money. Although the social and political relations of markets, publics, and institutions have been central to the past two decades of modernist studies, as figures such as Lawrence Rainey, Rachel Bowlby, and Joyce Piell Wexler have captured the complex ambivalence...

International Banking and Transmission of the 1931 Financial Crisis

In May-July 1931, a series of financial panics shook Central Europe before spreading to the rest of the world. This paper explores how the 1931 Central European crisis propagated to the London and New York financial centers; it also examines the role of cross-border banking linkages in international crisis transmission. Using archival bank-level data, I document US and British banks' asset-side exposure to the crisis region. The Continental crisis disturbed few US banks but endangered several British financial institutions and triggered severe stress in the London money market. Central European credits were mostly held by large and diversified commercial banks in the United States and by small and geographically specialized financial institutions in Britain. Differences in the market structure of the trade finance industry explain why the 1931 Central European crisis infected London banks but not New York banks.

Work-family balance

Purpose Given the reality that working mothers experience difficulties in achieving work-family balance because of the social restrictions that arise from parenting combined with career goals, this paper aims to explore the various coping strategies that are used by working mothers in the cities of London (Great Britain) and Lagos (Nigeria). Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 72 mothers who worked in banks in London (Great Britain) and Lagos (Nigeria). Thematic analysis and investigator triangulation are used. Findings The findings reveal various coping strategies used by working mothers in the cities of Lagos and London. The paper also unearths the efficiency and the shortcomings of the use of au pairs among British working mothers and the similarities and disparities in terms of such use compared to the traditional use of housekeepers in Nigeria. Originality/value This paper contributes to the existing work–family balance literature by exploring the coping strategies of working mothers because of sociocultural and institutional differences in Great Britain and Nigeria.

RESCISSION OF THE DOCTRINE OF RESCISSION FOR FRAUD

THE decision in Robb v National Crime Authority [2014] EWHC 4384 (Ch); [2015] Ch. 520 has an ironic aspect. Etherton C. upheld the claims of 71 buyers of off-the-plan properties to be developed in Turkish Northern Cyprus. Robb had defrauded them. They had paid sums to Robb, Robb's company, or Robb's agents. Robb later caused those sums to be transferred into his personal bank account with a London bank, intending to transfer the funds to a bank in Thailand. Since 71 of the investors had rescinded their investment contracts, the Chancellor held those investors entitled to trace their moneys into the London bank account. The irony is that the Chancellor's reasoning would itself unravel the modern doctrine of rescission for fraud.

The unusual tale of an auditing spiritualist

The London and General Bank case is well known in auditing history. Less familiar are some of the characters involved in the group of companies financed by the Bank and its sister institution, the Liberator Building Society. At the centre of the group was a Victorian rogue, Jabez Spencer Balfour, who ensured that only those he could dominate and manipulate were chosen to take part in his complex and fraudulent schemes. Two chartered accountant brothers were drawn into Balfour’s web. One of these, Morell Theobald, had an interest in the supernatural, although his claims about supernatural activities were disputed and he was more or less branded a fraud and a liar by fellow spiritualists. Using correspondence between Balfour and Theobald and between Theobald’s wife and the Home Secretary, we reveal insights to the psychology of the main character in the scheme and one of his weak-willed disciples. The evidence shows that Theobald knew enough about accounting and finance to realize that the strategy adopted by Balfour could not be sustained.

História de um lugar moderno: Clorindo Testa e o centro cívico de Santa Rosa, La Pampa

Santa Rosa, capital da jovem província de La Pampa, Argentina, foi fundada em 1892, ao término das campanhas militares que exterminaram as populações indígenas e asseguraram o controle republicano sobre os territórios do sul, da região pampiana à Patagônia. Em 1955, a cidade promoveu um concurso público, para a construção do seu Centro Cívico. A tarefa colocada pelo concurso não correspondia a uma simples operação de preenchimento, destinada a renovar o centro urbano propriamente dito, com a elevação de uma nova fachada sobre um dos quatro lados da praça principal. Ao contrário, os competidores deveriam organizar um conjunto de novos edifícios e espaços públicos, sobre um terreno de nove hectares, excêntrico com relação ao core fundacional. Tratava-se de fazer, quase do zero, um pedaço novo de cidade, precisamente no limite entre a cidade existente e o imenso pampa que a circundava. A proposta de Clorindo Testa, vencedora, foi construí-lo como um pedaço de cidade moderna. Situado em meio ao pampa argentino, o Centro Cívico de Santa Rosa tem sido menos examinado que outros importantes edifícios de Clorindo Testa no mesmo período, como o Banco de Londres (1959) ou a Biblioteca Nacional (1962), ambos em Buenos Aires. A Casa de Governo, a Estação Terminal de Ônibus e a praça coberta se constroem antes de 1963. Testa finaliza o Palácio do Legislativo em 1976, e, ainda que em 2006 volte a construir em La Pampa, com a inclusão da pequena Biblioteca do Legislativo, a metade da área originalmente destinada ao Centro Cívico permanece livre. No entanto, como peça viva de um projeto moderno, talvez nunca concluído, instalado no extremo sul, o caso de La Pampa parece colocar questões urbanas relevantes. O artigo explora o caso em dois sentidos complementares. O primeiro focaliza o resultado do primeiro concurso, reconhecendo nele uma contribuição original para as relações entre modernidade, monumento e lugar. O segundo discute a condição inacabada do Centro Cívico como constitutiva da tradição moderna, no sentido intrinsecamente moderno da cidade mesma, como obra que jamais se completa.

Salaries and promotion opportunities in the English banking industry, 1890–1936: a rejoinder

The article is a rejoinder to Andrew J. Seltzer's article, published in Business History in August 2010, which critiqued an article published in May 2008 on the topic of clerical salaries in London, 1870–1914. It examines trends in salaries and promotions of branch clerks at the London, County and Westminster Bank and at the National Provincial Bank, and focuses on the London area for the period 1880–1913. It argues that salaries increased between 1880 and 1895 and then declined from 1895 to 1913. Adjusting for tenure and inflation, salaries were approximately at the same level in 1913 as they were in 1880. It also examines the relationship between tenure and salary, linking both to the rise of internal labour markets in Britain's large retail banks.

The international propagation of the financial crisis of 2008 and a comparison with 1931

We examine the international propagation of the financial crisis of 2008, and compare it with that of the crisis of 1931. Both crises featured a flight to liquidity and safety. We argue that the collateral squeeze in the United States, which became intense after the failure of Lehman Brothers, was an important propagator in 2008; in 1931 the acceptances granted by London banks to central European borrowers propagated the crisis to the UK. In both crises, central banks' reserve management actions contributed to the liquidity crisis. And in both crises, the behaviour of creditors towards debtors, and the valuation of assets by creditors, were very important. However, there was a key difference between the two crises in the range and nature of assets that were regarded as liquid and safe: central banks in 2008, with no gold standard constraint, could liquefy illiquid assets on a much greater scale.

Thomas More, joint keeper of the exchange: a forgotten episode in the history of exchange control in England

Thomas More was appointed joint keeper of the exchanges in London for foreign exchange and at Calais in 1520, in partnership with a Genoese merchant, George Ardison. This article explores the background to this appointment, investigating the regulation of exchange payments to the Roman curia and the business links between Ardison and the London bank of his fellow Genoese Antony Vyvold. Ardison was the last in a series of Genoese farmers of the exchanges. The exchanges were granted to Thomas Boleyn in 1509, and from 1511 to 1520 Ardison was in partnership with another courtier, John Sharp.

The renminbi as an international currency

The dollar in 1914, like the renminbi today, played a negligible role in international trade and payments. Negotiable trade credits denominated in dollars were nonexistent. Manufacturers and wholesalers from other countries seeking to export and import from the United States and, more strikingly, even U.S. exporters and importers themselves, when seeking to obtain credit for a transaction, did so with the intermediation of an investment bank based in London. Those negotiable credit instruments known as bankers acceptances were denominated in sterling, since this was the currency in which London banks were accustomed to dealing. Smaller markets in negotiable trade credits existed in France (in francs) and Germany (in marks) but not in the United States, this despite the fact that by 1914 the United States was the largest trading nation. The dollar similarly played a negligible role as a currency in which to denominate international bonds, even though the U.S. turned from capital importer to capital exporter after 1890. The dollar accounted for just a tiny sliver of the foreign reserves of central banks and governments; only de facto U.S. dependencies like the Philippines held any of their reserves in dollars.