Earlier than Financial institution Underground goes off on its Christmas holidays, it’s time for the Annual Financial institution Underground Christmas Quiz! We hope you get pleasure from testing your information on our festive themed questions on economics, finance and all issues central banking…
1) (Literature) Through which of Jane Austen’s novels had been the Miss Steeles ‘prevailed on to remain practically two months on the park, and to help within the due celebration of that pageant which requires a greater than abnormal share of personal balls and huge dinner events to proclaim its significance’?
Incorrect
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Right. This festive reference happens in Chapter XXIV of Jane Austen’s novel, highlighting social customs of the time.
Supply: ‘Sense and Sensibility’, Chapter XXIV (Mission Gutenberg).
2) (Financial Historical past) St Nicholas’s Day is widely known on 6 December. His behavior of secret gift-giving impressed Santa Claus. What was he stated to have dropped into the home of a poor household below the quilt of evening?
Incorrect
Supply: ‘Who’s St. Nicholas?: St. Nicholas Heart‘.
3) (Commodities) A gold medal on the 1908 London Olympics contained 100% gold. What quantity of gold is present in medals awarded on the 2024 Paris Olympics?
Right. Fashionable gold medals are made primarily of silver with a skinny layer of gold plating (round 6 grams). Against this, medals at earlier Olympics, like these in 1908, had been predominantly gold.
Supply: Worldwide Olympic Committee data on medal compositions.
4) (Central Banking) Throughout 2024, Governor Andrew Bailey had an uncommon encounter with which animal?
Incorrect
Supply: ‘Yorkshire Wildlife Park Ltd‘.
Incorrect
5) (Macroeconomics) What, by regulation, have to be offered to HM Treasury by Christmas Day 2024?
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Right. This report have to be submitted yearly to HM Treasury below the Monetary Providers and Markets Act 2023.
Supply: UK laws on monetary oversight necessities.
Incorrect
6) (Financial Historical past) Christmas Day appears all the time to have been a vacation for financial institution workers. At the moment the Financial institution presents workers 26 days’ annual go away along with public holidays. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, the go away entitlement various broadly – at occasions much more beneficiant than in the present day and at different occasions a lot much less so. Which yr supplied the least go away entitlements?
Right. In 1834 the Financial institution supplied 4 days (Could Day, All Saints Day, Good Friday, and Christmas Day). In 1808 the Financial institution supplied 44 days (saints’ days and non secular festivals), in 1828 it supplied 33 days (saints’ days and non secular festivals), and in 1850 supplied 15–21 days relying on service.
Sources: David Kynaston, ‘Until Time’s Final Sand: A Historical past of the Financial institution of England 1694–2013’; H. Cunningham, ‘The Cambridge Social Historical past of Britain 1750–1950’.
7) (Presents) Which of those presents has Governor Andrew Bailey obtained throughout his time period of workplace?
Supply: ‘Financial institution of England‘.
Incorrect
8) (Financial Geography) Which nation has featured a snowflake design on one in all its banknotes?
Supply: ‘Norges Financial institution‘.
9) (Forex) Which legendary creature often seems on Roman cash, although extra generally related to historical Greek coinage?
Right. Whereas Pegasus, the winged horse, is extra famously related to Greek cash, corresponding to these of Corinth, the winged horse does seem on uncommon events in Roman coinage, usually in mythological or inventive contexts somewhat than for army symbolism.
Supply: ‘Roman Cash and Their Values’ by David Sear (and Greek numismatics for broader context).
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