Bank of England chief calls for more globalisation in finance
GLOBAL regulators must make sure they do not close borders to banks, as preventing further globalisation will constrain economic growth, the Bank of England’s Andrew Bailey warned yesterday.
Cross-border financial activity has shrunk dramatically since the crisis, the Bank’s prudential regulation authority boss said, and must be allowed to expand again as the economy recovers.
“International wholesale banking is therefore an important part of maintaining and developing the world economy,” he told an audience of bankers.
“We should not design the world as if fragmentation and balkanisation are inevitably always likely to be with us. That is a counsel of despair.”
If that route is followed, he said, it ignores both the wider benefits of free trade and would harm the UK and the City of London in particular as a key global financial centre.