The payments system, in effect, is the plumbing for Britain's financial system, which is often said to be backward in comparison with other countries.

BBC: UK banking reforms: What's new?

With small domestic markets, backward technology and inadequate capital, third-world countries have everything to gain from ending their relative isolation and developing close economic ties with the rest of the world.

ECONOMIST: The future of the state

Such problems will become greater in future because the largest concentrations of poverty are no longer in the backward rural areas but in the anarchic megalopolises of developing countries, like Lagos and Mumbai.

ECONOMIST: Anti-poverty programmes

They also complained about his conduct to a summit meeting this week of the countries of Mercosur, the South American trade block, of which Paraguay is the poorest and most backward member.

ECONOMIST: Paraguay