ABSTRACT
This and the following chapter highlight trends in deposit banking during the years from 1914 to 1939. Overall in this period there was a marked increase in private sector liquidity, including bank deposits. However, although the clearing banks (namely the London and Scottish clearers and Northern Ireland banks) shared in this expansion to some extent, they were no longer the most forthright innovators in the provision of financial services; growth was faster elsewhere. By the beginning of the period the clearing banks were the undisputed suppliers of services associated with retail banking (essentially money provision and transmission on behalf of the general public) but the following decades were to see a strong and growing demand for financial services and assets of a type not traditionally supplied by the clearers. In general the clearers did not seek to satisfy, or were ineffective in meeting, the new demands. It was to be other institutions such as building societies and insurance funds that attracted the business. As a result there was a decline in bank deposits relative to the total of money and near–money assets.
