Increasing the opportunities for female leaders in Fintech June 29, 2020 Fintech emerged from the 2008 financial crisis to transform traditional financial services, with aspirations to innovate, build trust and, deliver greater efficiency. While progress has been made for customers and businesses, are we optimising our ability to innovate? Despite the UK being one of the fastest growing Fintech economies, female founders make up only 17% [...]
Tax system to the rescue: Six policy tweaks that could kickstart the economy June 23, 2020 The past three months have seen a deluge of economic, political, and legal moves that would have been unthinkable at the start of the year. As civil liberties were curtailed on a scale never seen in peacetime and ten million children were turned away from school, new hospitals were built in a matter of weeks, [...]
Government’s Future Fund approves just £55.9m of convertible loans to date June 9, 2020 The government’s Future Fund scheme has approved £55.9m of convertible loans despite receiving applications worth £515m on the first day of launching. The fund was set up as an alternative to the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans Scheme (CBILS) for startups unable to demonstrate a turnover. It was designed to support startups through the coronavirus crisis [...]
Q&A: Why do markets rise even when the outlook is bleak? June 9, 2020 The global economy is on track for its worst recession in nearly 100 years, yet April was the market’s best monthly performance in three decades and the S&P 500 has just turned positive for 2020. Why? The first quarter of 2020 has been tough for the global economy in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. [...]
Crypto AM: Shines its spotlight on Mode June 2, 2020 Start A New Decade of Digital Banking with Mode We’re constantly reminded that we live in the age of digital banking. Most high street banks have been actively reducing their number of physical branches year-on-year since 2015, and according to comparison site Finder.com, an enormous two-thirds of UK banking customers say they are planning to [...]
Funding the Covid-19 recovery: Seize the opportunity to build a better tax system June 2, 2020 The suspension of huge parts of the economy coupled with an unprecedented package of government support measures mean that tax revenues are falling while public spending is surging. A leaked Treasury assessment estimated a £337bn budget deficit this year, nearly seven times the forecast in March’s budget. Analysts expect the debt-to-GDP ratio to be near [...]
London must square the circle to deliver a sustainable transport network May 28, 2020 Transport for London’s (TfL) funding, both in the short and long-term, was a thorny issue even before the pandemic set the scene for an eruption of the tensions between central and London governments. While keeping the system afloat is rightly the focus of debate – and will be again when the temporary solution expires in [...]
The City View: ‘End the lockdown now and cut taxes to avoid a depression’ – Dan Hannan May 28, 2020 In this episode Christian is joined by Dan Hannan, former Tory MEP now president of the Initiative for Free Trade. Subscribe to The City View Podcast: Apple / Google / Spotify / RSS Dan is a lockdown-sceptic and he makes a powerful case for reopening the economy and avoiding a crippling collapse in economic activity. In addition, he believes the government must [...]
Stock Exchanges in Nigeria and Ghana aim to deepen West African capital markets May 26, 2020 CFA Institute has examined Africa’s 10 largest capital markets in a major report compiled by Heidi Raubenheimer, CFA, our senior director for journal publications. Here we highlight key developments in the West African states of Nigeria and Ghana. Download the full report here. LSEG partnership boosts confidence in Nigerian exchange The economy of Nigeria – the [...]
Covid-19: the inescapable truths faced by investors May 22, 2020 Investors will need to be more agile than ever as Covid-19 reinforces many of the trends driving the world economy prior to the outbreak. “At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no more hope but that the whole city would be visited; when all that had friends or estates in the country [...]