(3) The business of the great banks has been increased at the expense of their smaller rivals. The prohibition of trading for the account made it difficult for the latter to carry out customer’s orders because the new methods required large supplies of both cash and securities. Furthermore, an increasing share of the business of the large banks came to be settled by offsets among their customers, and the actual exchange transactions became a proportionally small part of the total transfers. (4) This has a twofold effect. Business within the banks is done on the basis of exchange prices, but these became more fluctuating and subject to manipulation as the quantity of exchange dealings were diminished and were concentrated in a few hands. The advantages of a broad open market were lost. The object of the act had been to lessen the speculative influence over industrial undertakings. Its effect was to increase it. (5) Finally, the effect of interference, increased cost, and legal uncertainty was to drive business to foreign exchanges and diminish the power of the Berlin Exchange in the field of international finance. The number of agencies of foreign houses increased four or five fold and much German capital flowed into other centres, especially London, for investment or speculation. This in turn weakened the power of the Berlin money market, so that even the Reichbank has at times felt its serious effects.[84] Concerning the “Exchange Register” (which the government has now abolished as a complete failure) and the effort to keep the public out of the speculative markets, Professor Emery says: In one sense the fate of the famous exchange register is laughable, but in a deeper sense it is genuinely sad, for the object was a worthy one and the new scheme was adopted with high hopes. Its failure was inevitable, since it did not remove the temptation to speculate. The men who felt this temptation most, and whose position least warranted their yielding to it, were of course the very last men to have themselves registered. In fact the whole public revolted. The number of registrations never reached four hundred, which number would not begin to cover the banking and brokerage concerns. The number of “Outsiders” registered never reached forty. Even the conservative banks had to choose between giving up all such business and dealing with non-registered parties. (1) The uncertainties of the new situation were most likely to exclude the cautious and well-to-do from participation in the market. The reckless gambler of small means was less likely to be disturbed in his practices.