Description
WHY IS THIS BOOK SO timely and important? For one thing, banks remain central economic institutions of our time. What banks do and how they do it have become more important than ever. The bank has become the platform for the information revolution. The megamergers, the spread of multistate banking, the rise of electronic payments and the prospect of electronic money, the monstrous growth of trading in financial instruments-all have altered the lives of businesses and individuals, often in ways they do not, but should, understand.
THE BANKERS: The Next Generation introduces readers to what is enduring in the great human invention of money, and what may be transient; the social and economic functions banks perform and how these do or don't change; today's explosive growth in credit cards and tomorrow's revolutionary smart cards. Mayer also deals with computer banking and the Internet; privacy and security; the two-trillion-dollar-a-day flow of wholesale payments in the money markets; and the huge forty-trillion-dollar "notional" value of the derivatives, which are a rapidly growing source of prof- its for the big banks.
FINALLY, MAYER LOOKS not only at where the industry is going and what the government does to direct it but also at where the industry should go. After you read this fascinating exploration, you will never view bankers, banks, Wall Street and Washington, the country's finances-and your own-in the same way again.
ISBN:9780525938651
