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Despite rapid digital advances in financial services access to cash will remain critical to many consumers, according to chief economist of the Bank of England Hugh Pill.

And Cardiff-born Mr Pill said while some tech start-ups are reliant on equity investment, new firms more broadly often see their founders using their credit cards to get started.

The Welsh Government is committed to creating a community bank to address what it sees as the disfranchisement of communities with the loss of high street banking branches.

It is now working with Monmouthshire Building Society to deliver on its community bank Senedd election manifesto pledge. Any community bank would need regulatory approval from the Bank of England and with the necessary reserves and start-up costs could need to raise tens of millions of pounds.

Mr Pill said he was aware of the project, although it didn’t form part of his remit. He added: “Put into the bigger context we want to have at the bank a world leading and state of the art approach to everything we are doing, whether it is monetary policy, payments etc.

"So there is a lot of thinking going on about that, but at the same time when we are talking about fintech innovation and the creation of central bank digital currencies we have been clear that this would not supersede, at least at this stage, the use of physical cash. That is partly for reasons of inclusion. So we do have a responsibility to ensure that people who don’t have access to digital infrastructure, and there is surprisingly high proportions of people in certain communities that don’t have access to digital infrastructure, are still able to engage with the financial sector.

"Of course there are pressures on traditional banks and the question is how you manage to sustain that access to financial services in a say an analogue way where the cost pressures are already high and the bank (BoE) is involved in that.”