As we settle into Lockdown 2.0 with people barely recovered from Lockdown 1.0, it’s likely that more people will need to stay at home with suspected Coronavirus symptoms, whilst waiting for test results or having been notified by the government’s test and trace system. All this is only sustainable if people can keep up with the essentials like booking online […]
The first wave of Covid-19 shocked and galvanised us. An unprecedented situation for all, amidst the challenges to fundraising, health, finances, and freedom of movement it presented, it also inspired incredible levels of community action and giving of all kinds. In this second period of lockdown not for profits will need to work harder and smarter to keep supporters engaged […]
Citi’s Tony McLaughlin talks to John Jackson from The Bank of England about its Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) program.
Weekly ATM value and volume figures 8 November 2020. Key observations for week ending 8 November: Sunday’s (1 November) ‘dash for cash continued on Monday (2 November) which was the busiest Monday for ATMs since March with £238m dispensed. The ‘dash’ tailed off after a couple of days and week ending 8 November saw the lowest weekly volume of ATM […]
Navigating the UK’s retail payments landscape can be a complex and daunting task – save time and effort with Northey Point’s payment trackers. Keep upto speed with four trackers from Mike Chambers at Northey Point. ATM Tracker ATM Tracker: Monthly volumes and values Payments Tracker Payments Tracker: Providing a monthly round up of volumes and values of retail payments in the […]
Huawei’s new smartphone comes with digital yuan wallet In Digital Fiat 1 we covered a digital Yuan giveaway – today we return to the topic of a Chinese Central Bank Digital Currency and consider a potential world first – a CBDC wallet pre-loaded on a smartphone. Huawei’s latest range of smartphones will allow its users to store, send and receive China’s central bank […]
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” is the entirety of what has been described as a six-word story, making it an extreme example of what is called flash fiction or sudden fiction. Although it is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, the link to him is unsubstantiated and similar stories predate him. Last week subscribers of my Payments, Payments, Payments newsletter were invited to take […]
It does not mean that the pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued. Almost 50 years ago (November 1967) the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, was facing a crisis and was defending his decision to devalue the pound saying it will tackle the “root cause” of Britain’s economic problems. The government announced that […]
Weekly ATM value and volume figures 1 November 2020. Key observations for week ending 1 November: Sunday saw a ‘dash for cash‘ equating to an 18% increase to £174m in the value of cash taken from LINK ATMs when compared to the previous Sunday. Monday was the busiest Monday for ATMs since March with £238m dispensed. Even with Sunday’s dash […]
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” is the entirety of what has been described as a six-word story, making it an extreme example of what is called flash fiction or sudden fiction. Although it is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, the link to him is unsubstantiated and similar stories predate him. How would you explain “digital payments” in six words? Two […]
After the announcement of a second lockdown in England on Sunday (1st November) saw a dash for cash with an 18% increase to £174m in the value of cash taken from LINK ATMs when compared to the previous Sunday. Monthly LINK ATM transaction volumes for October were 138million: Volumes have been static over the last four months – after a […]
The Reserve Bank of Australia is collaborating with Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Perpetual and ConsenSys Software on a project to explore the potential use and implications of a wholesale form of central bank digital currency (CBDC) using distributed ledger technology (DLT). The project will involve the development of a proof-of-concept (POC) for the issuance of a tokenised form of CBDC that can be used by wholesale market participants for […]
Christine Lagarde invites public comments on eurozone CBDC Christine Lagarde, former Managing Director of the IMF and current President of the European Central Bank, has invited public commentary on a potential eurozone central bank digital currency (CBDC): We are still in the review and considerations stage, but we’ve just launched a public consultation so that consumers and Europeans can actually […]
Current account switches steadily rose in Q3 as bank incentive offers returned A couple of days ago (29 October 2020) Pay.UK published the Q3 2020 Current Account Switching Service (CASS) dashboard – click below to check out Northey Points ‘winners and losers’ blog. Monthly Account Switching Stats Pay.UK report that total 136,575 switches took place in the third quarter of […]
The Q3 2020 Current Account Switching Service (CASS) dashboard has been published today (29 October 2020). In this latest dashboard we find out how many of us transferred our bank account in Q3 2020 and who the switching winners and losers were during the COVID lockdown in Q2 2020. The number of switches during 2020: Source: Pay.UK A total of […]
Over the past few days we have looked at the latest CBDC developments in Japan, China, Canada, Australia and the EU but what is happening in the UK? A couple of days ago the Bank of England’s finch director, Tom Mutton, provided an insight into the UK Central Banks current thinking on CBDC’s. In his speech Tom states that while a central […]
