Why did the Bank of England electronically transfer $83.25 million to the USA and $22.3 million to Canada today, 29th December 2006?

I knew I'd overspent again this Christmas, and my parents in the UK, said they were not going to bail me out for a second year in a row..but maybe they had a change of heart?

I think these payments are to settle WW2 debts to Britains allies in the US and Canada

I think it was for reconstruction after the war. I don't think the U.K. had to re-pay Canada anything for our contribution to beating the Axis powers because we joined voluntarily and viewed ourselves as allies, along with many other Commonwealth nations.

Maybe they had to pay the U.S. for their contribution, I'm not sure. But they shouldn't have had to, because by the time the U.S. joined the war, they had been attacked by an Axis power, too Japan). So they, too, would have been simply allies, and paid their own way.

What got me was that the Bank paid by electronic transfer. Now, if my bank did that the money would go missing and end up in the wrong account, plus it would have taken four days to be credited