ECB may expand bond buying in future but no need yet, says board member June 10, 2020 The European Central Bank (ECB) may expand its crisis-fighting toolkit in the future but is not planning to do so imminently, a board member said, playing down the possibility of the central bank buying bonds issued by banks or by junk-rated companies. The ECB last week boosted its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme to €1.35 trillion [...]
EU must boost capital markets due to coronavirus and Brexit, say finance chiefs June 10, 2020 The European Union needs to deregulate its capital markets to help the economy recover from coronavirus and reduce its reliance on the City of London, according to a panel of industry executives. With huge amounts of debt being sold to counter the economic hit caused by Covid-19 and the bloc set to lose its major [...]
Coronavirus: UK economy set for ‘most severe downturn in modern times’ June 10, 2020 The coronavirus pandemic has dragged the UK into the “most severe economic downturn in modern times” with the economy set to contract over seven per cent this year, new forecasts suggest. The UK economy is expected to shrink 7.2 per cent in 2020 and is unlikely to fully recover from the impact of Covid-19 until [...]
Government unveils pandemic support package for struggling tech firms June 9, 2020 International trade secretary Liz Truss will on Wednesday unveil a package of measures designed to help bolster the UK’s tech community, as businesses continue to struggle during the coronavirus pandemic. Jointly supported by the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the measures are aimed at helping [...]
Brexit: Minister says there is no point in an ’11th hour’ UK-EU trade deal June 9, 2020 Cabinet Office minister Penny Mordaunt has told MPs that there is no point doing an “11th hour” Brexit trade deal and that the EU needs to speed up negotiations. Mordaunt – who was stepping in for defacto Brexit minister Michael Gove in the House of Commons today – said that businesses needed enough time to [...]
Consortia: Chicken or Egg? June 9, 2020 Building a blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) solution adds no value if there is only a single benefactor. The most impactful solutions involve multiple stakeholders. In most cases, many of the enterprises are competitors who have agreed to work together to solve a common industry problem – or exploit a new business model. But [...]
The City View: The future of capital markets, with William Wright – founder of New Financial June 9, 2020 In this episode Christian is joined by William Wright, founder of the capital markets think-tank, New Financial, which works to promote bigger and better capital markets. Subscribe to The City View Podcast: Apple / Google / Spotify / RSS It also strives to explain the role and purpose of capital markets, and to focus the industry on how it can best serve [...]
BT auditor highlights new accounting weaknesses June 8, 2020 The external auditor of BT has highlighted “material weaknesses” within the company’s financial reporting controls, in the latest upset to its accounting credibility. In a letter to the telecoms firm KPMG noted that BT “did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting as of 31 March, 2020 because of… material weaknesses related to general [...]
IP lock-out: Is Britain handing the EU the keys to a billion-pound industry? June 8, 2020 We are getting close to crunch point in the Brexit negotiations. Last week saw the culmination of the final round of talks between the EU and the UK ahead of the 30 June deadline to agree an extension to the transition period. Given the glacial progress so far, a sudden breakthrough appears highly unlikely, with [...]
Sajid Javid asks Boris Johnson to do more to ‘fight racial injustice’ June 7, 2020 Former chancellor Sajid Javid has called for Boris Johnson to take a larger role in tackling racial inequality in Britain. Javid said “only the Prime Minister is capable of driving real change” and that he should “bring the same energy and determination to fighting racial injustice and delivering equal opportunity” as he has to the [...]