Act first, reflect later. That seems to have been the motto of the UK government during the pandemic. It’s a strategy that’s worked very well for vaccinations, but the attempts to throw money at the financial services sector appear to be just that, and little more. Our friends at AltFi report some (relatively) good news: Fraudulent use of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme may be lower than previously thought, according to data analysis conducted by Equifax. The Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), which launched in the wake of the pandemic in April 2020, has lent out more than £46.5bn of …
Our head of content and communications is publishing a series of articles on the future of finance and the massive impact of the digital world in Byline Times. Here’s an extract from the first piece. Rethinking the nature of money is serious stuff: it is in effect the re-examination of a concept of value exchange that’s been central to society, certainly every mercantile culture for thousands of years – from Pacific conch shells, to gold, to promissory notes and credit cards. A key to unpicking this foundation-stone concept involves delving into some deepish background. This is the first of a …