Equinix to spend £90m on Slough data centre to support the City’s increasing reliance on data November 19, 2018 Technology infrastructure giant Equinix is building a £90m flagship data centre to support increased reliance on data by City firms, the company said today. The US firm said the new and expanded facilities will support growing volumes of data, including increased traffic in the City. The project, dubbed LD7, is due to be completed in early 2019. The new facility [...]
Fairytale economics will not enchant markets November 14, 2018 In a remarkable break with the economic prudence of the past decade, policymakers in the west are taking their feet off the spending brakes. During the recent midterm elections in the US, President Trump hailed the continuing stream of positive economic data and Democrats’ warnings about the cost of tax cuts failed to cut through. Meanwhile the [...]
Central banks could issue state-backed digital currencies, says IMF November 14, 2018 Central banks could issue digital currency, International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde said today. Speaking at an event in Singapore, Lagarde mooted a state-backed digital token, or an account held at the central bank for consumers and firms to use for retail payments. As the demand for cashless payments increases, digital currency could provide security [...]
Embracing digital technology will help the City to shape the future of the UK November 12, 2018 As the 691st lord mayor of the City of London, I follow a long continuum dating back to 1189, before the Magna Carta. My focus over the next 12 months will be on how the City can help shape the UK’s future. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, British innovations such as railways, cotton mills and [...]
Hammond’s digital tax is an illogical game of whack-a-mole November 7, 2018 The introduction of a new digital services tax was the most depressingly inevitable part of Philip Hammond’s Budget speech last week. Years of pressure from a pincer movement of corporate tax moralists and traditional retailers have paid off. Starting in April 2020, profitable digital businesses with £500m in global revenues would face a two per cent [...]
A luddite levy on online shopping won’t help the high street October 23, 2018 Time and time again over the past few months, we’ve heard prominent figures in the retail world call for a special sales tax on online companies to help prop up their struggling sector, from the Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis, to the New West End Company that represents Selfridges and Marks & Spencer. Chancellor Philip [...]
The future is now, but we’ll miss it if we don’t solve tech’s talent crisis October 19, 2018 The time has come for us to change the narrative. Too often, company executives talk about a future where artificial intelligence will transform the employment landscape or the strategies they are developing to adapt to the fourth industrial revolution. But that time is here – and companies need to be taking action now. Read more: London's [...]
In the new age of cyber warfare, finance firms are on the front line October 15, 2018 Throughout history, the job of the nation state has been to protect citizens from a range of threats, be that disease, famine, or foreign invasion. In an analogue world, these threats were physical in nature and, as a result, mostly localised. The threat landscape is radically different in a connected, digital world. Critical infrastructures, from smart [...]
Malta Blockchain Summit 2018 October 9, 2018 Malta’s unprecedented economic success is a result of a collective effort – the political will of decision makers but even more so the hard work of our enterprises, our workers and our resilient institutions. We have a solid financial services sector and through innovative technologies we’ve vouched to enhance it even further. We are now [...]
Crypto: Unchained but regulated October 9, 2018 | Sponsored Crypto is the Millennials’ Rock’n’Roll” says Stephen Castell, ”and Dr Joseph Muscat, the Malta Prime Minister, has emerged as the world’s top crypto rocker, bravely positioning his beautiful sun-kissed sandstone island country, Chair of the Commonwealth, and President of the Council of the EU, as the leader in regulating Blockchain applications, ICOs, cryptocurrency trading and, [...]