Although most people have a rough idea of how the UK economy works (or, if you’re being cynical, doesn’t work), the functions of the various components and their relationships to each other can be quite elusive. We’ve covered some aspects of money on this site in the past (here, for example), but there’s more to the economy than money itself. In fact, arguably more important than money is the way in which that money is moved around the economic system of the UK.
Over the next few articles I’m going to look at each of the main institutions involved in the movement and management of money in the UK. I’ll be looking at the Treasury, the FSA, the City of London as a whole and, to start with, the Bank of England (you may have spotted the one glaring hole in this list, more important than all the rest, which I’ll cover at at a later date).
The Bank of England is not a bank in the traditional sense. You can’t deposit your money there directly, and nor can you borrow from it directly. Banks, however, can. This is the fundamental aspect of one of the Bank’s stated core purposes: to maintain financial stability in the UK economy. By lending to banks that are suffering from cash-flow problems, unusual circumstances or moronic management, the Bank can act as a buffer to prevent problems in one area of the economy spilling over into others. Hopefully.
To quote from the Bank’s own documents: “Financial stability entails detecting and reducing threats to the financial system as a whole. Such threats are detected through the Bank’s surveillance and market intelligence functions. They are reduced by strengthening infrastructure, and by financial and other operations, at home and abroad, including, in exceptional circumstances, by acting as the lender of last resort.”
You may feel a hollow laugh coming on at this point, given the last year’s experience of a crumbled, nationalised bank, a bursting bubble of overpriced housing, rising inflation - especially in food and fuel - and incomes that fail to match expenses. It doesn’t look much like financial stability, does it?