The Bankers

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 profits 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.