A SHORT walk east from the Bank of England's building on Threadneedle Street takes you to the Broadgate shops-and-offices complex, built in the 1980s on the edge of the City, London's main financial district. The shifting architecture on the journey traces the changes wrought by "Big Bang", a set of new rules for the financial-services industry that came into force 25 years ago, on October 27th 1986. The stone-clad buildings on the mazy streets and narrow lanes around the old Stock Exchange on Throgmorton Street, close to the Bank, housed the British firms that carved up London's stockbroking and trading until the Big Bang reforms. The buildings are rarely more than five storeys high and are tightly packed, befitting an industry that was once close-knit and small-scale. Walking east, the streets widen and the buildings become larger and newer. These house some of the big investment banks, usually foreign-owned, which trade shares, bonds, currencies and derivatives on a scale that would have made an old-school City gent choke on his lunch. These one-stop financial shops with vast trading floors are one legacy of Big Bang (the demise of the leisurely lunch is another). Foreign banks took advantage of the opening up of stockbroking to outsiders to establish a presence in London's fast-growing financial centre. That influx of capital pushed up wages and, together with rising stockmarkets and lower income-tax rates, created a mood of optimism among City professionals.
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