Global financial services and a global single currency

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the evolution of financial institutions in the context of increasingly volatile foreign exchange markets. The paper discusses the importance of the formation of a single currency in the US in the 19th century and the formation of the Euro in the 20th century for reducing volatility in foreign exchange markets that have assisted financial institutions’ international business expansion. The paper also considers some of the key assumptions of an optimal currency theorem such as labour mobility and argues that in the 21st century, more comprehensive financial market integration and a single global currency could emerge, provided that capital mobility and hence foreign capital flows continue meeting labour in the host countries for production rather than the other way round.