In 2015, consultants raised concerns that the bank was not setting aside enough cash for the “incredibly complex” project to switch to a new online system. Customers still struggled to access accounts despite Paul Pester, chief executive, claiming that everything was working. 2 A trawl through hundreds of years of economic data held by the Bank of England has revealed what many suspected, that Britain’s “productivity puzzle” of the past ten years has been almost unprecedented. To find a period of slower UK productivity growth, researchers had to go back to 1761 and 1781. 3 Britain’s pensioners are happier, have a greater sense of self-worth and are…

Source: The Times April 25, 2018 22:52 UTC