New law to probe foreign takeovers to be unveiled this week November 10, 2020 A new law which will enable ministers to scrutinise foreign takeovers of companies deemed of national importance will be published on Wednesday. Sky News reported that the National Security and Investment Bill will list 17 sectors of strategic significance that will need governmental approval for transactions. Sources told Sky that these would include nuclear energy, [...]
Box-fresh? Sandboxes go global November 4, 2020 What image does the word ‘sandbox’ conjure up for you? For most people, the answer is likely to be kindergartens, buckets and sandcastles. But for financial services innovators, sandboxes have a different meaning – and, for some projects, pivotal importance. For organisations looking to launch a product that needs a regulatory licence, a sandbox is [...]
Calculating the good, bad and boring in Defi November 3, 2020 There is a feeding frenzy around decentralised finance (Defi). The most popular decentralised exchange Uniswap has surpassed more than $3bn locked in it, and there was a peak in October of more than $12.5bn of assets in Defi. Much of the excitement has been driven by the returns earned for providing liquidity for ‘automated market [...]
Trump or Biden: Who would be better for the UK? November 3, 2020 Trump or Biden: Who would be better for the UK? JOIN THE DEBATE Sarah Elliott, chair of Republicans Overseas UK, says TRUMP When I turn the radio tomorrow morning, I hope that the BBC will announce a victory for President Donald J. Trump — and not just for America, but for the sake of the [...]
Five trends to watch in China’s consumer sector November 3, 2020 As the world continues to try to contain the spread of Covid-19, China is among the few countries sustaining a return to normal activity. Restrictions on movement have been lifted and the government’s test and trace system has so far proven effective in containing new outbreaks. As a result, shops, restaurants and other services have [...]
Softbank Vision Fund dealt another blow with boardroom exodus November 2, 2020 After a year of hefty losses, Softbank is now dealing with an exodus of executives at its $100bn Vision Fund. The Japanese conglomerate plunged to its worst ever annual performance in March after recording a huge $18bn loss for the Vision Fund. It bounced back in August after strong performances by its tech investments. Softbank [...]
Connecting DeFi with real world assets: the next horizon October 30, 2020 Decentralised Finance (DeFi) is a term used to refer to innovations in capital markets that rely on blockchains, and enable capital market activities across an open network, where trust is automated in the software. Instead of using conventional financial rails such as banks or credit transfer APIs, DeFi based projects work entirely on blockchains without [...]
Infrastructure in Deep Tech October 27, 2020 Lex Sokolin’s Fintech Blueprint newsletter last week set out the challenges for the financial services sector in 2020. He summarised the argument saying “(1) the shift from physical to digital communities is being accelerated by the COVID environment, and (2) this has led to the acceleration in adoption of virtual worlds, events, and economic activities [...]
Leading research and innovation in times of Coronavirus October 26, 2020 Europe’s densest pharma environment, Catalonia received highest number of R&D investment projects in 2019 Catalonia is Europe’s densest pharma environment. It is home to more han 1,000 companies in the life sciences industry and, since 2008, capital investment in Catalonia’s life sciences companies has multiplied by 12. A world- class network of medical institutions, hospitals, [...]
Barcelona’s strategy to attract foreign tech investment, second best in Europe October 26, 2020 The number of foreign tech companies in Catalonia grew by 21% in 2020 reaching 1,369 The fDi Intelligence division of the ‘Financial Times’ group together with The Next Web – one of the leading European media and companies in the field of technology and startups – recognise Barcelona and Catalonia’s strategy to attract foreign technological [...]