Few things are as alluring as optimism and Mark Carney sees the banking glass as half-full. The Bank of England governor has arrived from Canada with a dose of can-do spirit, casting off the pessimism of Mervyn King, his predecessor.

Where Lord King saw banks of questionable value that have grown too big for society’s good, Mr Carney sees a knowledge industry that has been vital to growth and trade since the 19th century. If bankers behave better and the too-big-to-fail problem is solved – two big “ifs” – the City of London will be an asset, not a liability.

In his speech for the FT’s 125th anniversary , Mr Carney did not exactly dismiss the views of Lord King and Andy Haldane, the Bank’s executive director of financial stability, but he confined them to a footnote. “It was an amazing speech, a radical rupture with the message of the bank since the crisis,” says Ewald Engelen, professor of financial geography at the University of Amsterdam.