"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."--BOOK JACKET. "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."--BOOK JACKET.