While the
anti-cash lobby are busy like performing seals applauding the supposed shift to
digital payment means that COVID-19 will usher in, a concern that has gone
under the radar is that it must be possible, during the pandemic, for
remittances to flow, and quickly, and without massive fee deductions, from
members of a community that wish to render financial […]
Recent extent of spread of COVID-19
Migrant Remittances are associated with Money Services
Businesses (“MSBs”), where the migrant in question delivers cover for the
payment order in cash, and the MSB transfers the proceeds to the beneficiary,
typically friends and family in the country that is home to the counterpart
community of the one in the sender’s country to which […]
In a previous blog I cited, as fellow travellers of the
anti-cash lobby, national or international authorities charged with enabling
the meeting of UN Development Goals, and accepting that the way these will be
met is through Fintech, rather than on the back of cash.
A prime example of such a national organisation is the UK’s
DfID or the Department […]
A taxonomy of the anti-cash lobby is not taxing.
First we have the frontrunners, dissing cash as part of a pump-and-dump strategy to make their own offerings fly commercially:
Crypto (but don’t mention eco to them: a single crypto
transaction consumes the same electricity as Bridlington does in a year)Fintechs proposing their digital or Open Banking
offeringRegtechs proposing their […]
It must be absolutely obvious who are the principals in the campaign
to eliminate cash – it’s the card issuers and the card brands. Both have
serious financial interests in play.
In the UK the major banks have reduced their branch networks and with it their ATM estates – to cut costs. Theirs is a major cost reduction […]
Report on the trial of the miscreant Richard Towne – “the Zeeland Sands Chunderer”
We have done four previous blogs about the punishment of economic crime as recorded in the Old Bailey archives and particularly for the period when we have the “Ordinary’s Account” of the resulting executions.
Now we should move on to the cases of […]
Extract from “Ordinary’s Account” of executions at the Tyburn on 23rd March 1752
We have recently published three blogs about economic crime
in the modern day and its equivalents in the Old Bailey archives, with special
references to the “Ordinary’s Accounts”: the Newgate prison chaplain’s narrative
about each condemned prisoner and their crime.
Report OA17520323 of 23rd […]
The heinous crime of Thomas Wood…but he did not get to face the drop.
We have previously examined the archives of Old Bailey
proceedings for precedent offences to those of issuing Stablecoin (“coin
clipping”) and issuing Bitcoin (“uttering counterfeit currency”).
To close the loop we need to take a position on the running
of a Bit/Stablecoin exchange, and to do […]
The chaplain’s account of the demise of divers traiterous malefactors
The archives of Old Bailey proceedings are detailed in their
coverage of offences to do with the Coin of the Realm, and infringements
thereof.
In a previous blog we explored whether Stablecoin was an
example of “coin clipping” because, although supposedly backed by fiat
currency, gold, silver or whatever, it was […]
Benjamin Smith’s Treason: Clipping the King’s Coin
I count myself very lucky in the current difficulties for
many things, including having an Open University MA in English local history to
be getting on with. It is 100% remote and can be done on a social-distance or
self-isolation basis, apart from missing out on visiting fusty archives.
The current module is […]