And there is no reason that payment clearing couldn't be done by an international trust or some other not-for-profit organisation.

Effectively some of it is already - banks provide a public interface to CHAPS, SWIFT and other clearing systems.

But in the UK there's still paper cheque clearing, which is still done - get this - by letter post.

The 3-5 day clearing schedule is a massive drain on the economy. Payments are made late and debt defaults happen because of it.

So it would be to (almost) everyone's benefit to automate the system to the maximum possible extent, and to speed up transactions so that credits and transfers would be available instantly.