Brexit is a massive opportunity for Britain’s world-beating financial services industry June 16, 2016 So what will a vote to leave on 23 June mean for our financial services? Simply put, it will be business as usual but with a massive opportunity to leave behind the EU’s “one size fits all” regulation and develop our world-leading industry under a strict and independent Bank of England. Never again should the UK taxpayer [...]
The FCA’s new broom must act fast to revive confidence in the regulator June 16, 2016 Tonight Mansion House once again acts as host to the great and good of the City’s financial services fraternity. Amid inevitable chatter about the EU referendum vote and darkening global economic clouds, attention will turn to the imminent changing of the guard at the Financial Conduct Authority. Almost a year has passed since its first [...]
Has the chancellor completely undermined his credibility by pledging post-Brexit tax hikes? June 16, 2016 Andrew Allum, chairman of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, says Yes. George Osborne’s credibility has been hanging by a thread for some time after missing just about every single fiscal target he’s ever set himself, but his latest contribution to the referendum debate is beyond the pale. He simply cannot possibly know the economic impact a leave vote [...]
Osborne’s Brexit Budget is blackmail based on fundamentally flawed economics June 15, 2016 I want to phone the police and ask them to arrest George Osborne and former chancellor Alistair Darling, and charge them with threatening behaviour. For that is exactly what the latest episode in Project Fear – the spending cuts and tax hikes the chancellor says he’d have to enact due to the economic impact of [...]
The City of London will prosper in or out of the European Union June 15, 2016 A friend tells me why he is voting Remain. “My wife works for a French bank and they would pull out of London if we left the EU.” That’s fair enough. Assuming the French bank set up in London to access the EU, then it’s logical to assume it would leave after Brexit. But a [...]
Old Europe’s poor record on innovation is a harbinger of long-term stagnation – but don’t expect an easy divorce June 15, 2016 The economic debate around Brexit has been disappointing, with far too many of the points focusing on the short term. Would Brexit precipitate a sterling crisis? Well, if it did, at some point the currency would bounce back. Would it tip us into a recession? Maybe, but recessions come to an end. The key economic [...]
How the EU referendum is literally playing tricks with your mind June 15, 2016 Leading Brexiters agree that we’ll be financially worse off if we exit the EU, at least in the short term. So if leaving makes us poorer, why are so many prepared to vote for it? The credit goes to Vote Leave, the Derren Brown of politics, who are brilliantly managing our cognitive biases and, literally, [...]
With 10-year German bunds now yielding less than nothing, are bond markets a disaster waiting to happen? June 15, 2016 Tim Price, manager of the VT Price Value Portfolio, says Yes. Almost certainly, yes. With 10-year German bond yields having turned negative, there is now $11 trillion worth of sovereign debt around the world that yields less than nothing. And yet there has never been more debt in the system. The word “madness” springs to mind. [...]
EU Referendum: With just over a week to go, you can expect the debate to become even more heated June 15, 2016 Just over a week ago, the chance of Leave winning the referendum was merely 22 per cent according to a prominent betting exchange. Meanwhile, at the time, one pound was worth $1.455 on forex markets. Yesterday, the same betting exchange rated the probability of a Leave vote at 40 per cent, thanks to a series of [...]
It’s time to bring retirement into the twenty-first century June 14, 2016 Few words can stop a conversation as quickly as “retirement”. Many of us can hardly bear to think about it, never mind talk about it. Others – just under half, according to our latest Investor Pulse survey – do save for old age, but with no confidence we’ll get the income we want at the [...]