Mojmír Hampl, vice governor of the Czech national bank, warns against the ‘highly addictive drug’ of monetary financing of governments. He is responding to Meghnad Desai and David Marsh's article Options for QE Exit, in which they argue that the Bank of England could reverse its accommodative policy by transferring UK government bonds back to the Treasury and then cancelling or converting them.

A new development bank launched by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa could present a challenge to the ‘Bretton Woods twins’, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. But several weighty operational issues must be resolved first, which raise considerable questions over its effectiveness.

China has been making paltry returns on its foreign assets, and would be well advised to shift out of dollar-denominated reserves and into privately-managed investments valued in renminbi and geared to equities not debt. Currency liberalisation will enable more international trade in renminbi, mounting a challenge to the dollar’s supremacy.

Publishing minutes of ECB meetings will highlight differences of opinion on the governing council. With below-target inflation and a Fed interest rate rise in the offing, opinion at the ECB is finely balanced on the need for quantitative easing – and a confrontation may be brewing.