If you were starting from scratch today, building a banking, monetary and financial system for the world, a banking system for a single country or geography or just designing a bank account from scratch, would you build it the same way it has evolved today? Would you start with physical bank branches, insist on physical currency on paper or polymers, “wet” signatures on application forms, passbooks, plastic cards, cheque books, and the need to rock up with 17 different pieces of paper and three forms of ID for a mortgage application?
