Credit Suisse crisis: Swiss lender taps central bank for emergency £35bn loan backstop March 16, 2023 CREDIT SUISSE overnight announced it would take advantage of a 50bn franc facility offered by the Swiss National Bank after a day in which its stock price sank by 25 per cent. The embattled Swiss lender’s tumble was triggered yesterday morning by comments from its largest shareholder, Saudi National Bank, that it would not inject [...]
“Project Yeti”: Inside the scramble to save Silicon Valley Bank UK March 13, 2023 “It’s going down to the wire.” That was the view of Coadec CEO Dom Hallas at 11pm on Sunday evening after hours of meetings had failed to produce a deal on the future of Silicon Valley Bank – with the tech industry warning it would be an existential threat to thousands of firms across the [...]
Silicon Valley Bank UK: What we know (and don’t know) on Monday morning March 13, 2023 Silicon Valley Bank UK was put into insolvency last night – with expectations that government would step in before Monday’s market open now looking more unlikely. The bank’s accounts are effectively frozen, meaning that firms will be unable to access their deposits – possibly leaving them unable to pay bills or salaries. SVB UK’s parent [...]
UK must turn around the ship of state towards economic freedom March 12, 2023 Dr Rainer Zitelmann is a historian and sociologist. In this guest essay, he argues the UK is slipping down the list of free countries in a new global index Last year, the UK received its worst rating in the Index of Economic Freedom since 1995, when the index was first calculated. This year’s rating is [...]
Book review: A vital tome for those fighting for capitalism March 9, 2023 Imagine someone programmed a Twitter bot which, every time somebody describes a problem of some sort, responded with some variation of “I think you will find that the root cause of the problem is capitalism!” That bot would easily get tens of thousands of likes, retweets, and supportive replies every time. Anti-capitalist platitudes, no matter [...]
Britain needs to rediscover the joy of risk and reward March 8, 2023 This time next week, no doubt, your fingernails will be bitten to the quick in anticipation of Jeremy Hunt’s budget. Should you be able to wait no longer, we offer you our best informed prediction: don’t get too excited. In some ways, a muted ‘fiscal event’ sums up Britain and Westminster at the moment. There [...]
In Defence of Capitalism: How free markets are lifting people out of poverty March 8, 2023 In the second of an eight part series, the historian and sociologist Dr Rainer Zitelmann writes for City A.M. in defence of capitalism, arguing that freer markets are usually the answer to society’s problems, not the cause. Each week he will ‘myth-bust’ the common complaints about capitalism – and this week, it’s that capitalism is responsible [...]
The Notebook: Nick Bowes on devolution, LA’s issues and why Lewisham is now home March 6, 2023 ACCESS to opportunities – well-paid jobs and high-quality study – is a major part of the levelling up agenda.Clearly, some parts of the UK don’t have the same access to jobs and education as others. London scores well, being home to amazing universities and colleges and thousands of high-end jobs. Many Londoners can see the [...]
Sniffy frustrations at Solvency II reforms betray Bank’s out-of-touch approach March 6, 2023 Regulation is a risky business – pun intended. Reducing the possibility of something going completely Pete Tong is at the heart of the work of all of the City’s rulemakers, but it should not be the be-all and end-all. It is this trap into which the Bank of England and its Prudential Regulation Authority appear [...]
As a government, we need to bring tech success to ordinary Brits’ lives March 6, 2023 In my new role as Technology Secretary, it won’t surprise you to hear that I get hundreds of emails, and many of them end with that familiar automated line “sent from my iPhone”. I am sure everyone reading this will have had the same, and never thought twice about it. But this week, as I was thinking [...]