The obvious change in the money medium, from ‘full-bodied’ coins to notes and bank deposits, is just a part of a wider development, the development of a financial system. This has taken the form of the growth of financial institutions, not just banks, but other ‘financial intermediaries’ as well; it has carried with it a fundamental change in the financial activities of governments. In the course of these changes there has been a change in the whole character of the monetary system. In a world of banks and insurance companies, money markets and stock exchanges, money is quite a different thing from what it was before these institutions came into being. (Hicks)