The Bank of England – off-the-leash and now off-the-wall as well

From Global Britain website

Global Britain has published a pamphlet written by Lyddon Consulting on how recent events have moved the Bank of England beyond any democratic control. The Bank’s ‘Britcoin’ project – for the introduction of a UK Central Bank Digital Currency – demonstrates the Bank of England independence – from us and from our […]

Plans for a UK-crypto, just when real crypto is dying, show a coup d’état has occurred

Introduction

Plans to introduce Britcoin, a UK Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC, must continue apace, according to the nation’s second-in-command, Deputy Governor Sir Jon Cunliffe from the Bank of England. The awkward death of real crypto cannot be permitted to upset the Bank’s applecart, and reality and the opinions of the population do not matter […]

FTX could be ‘game over’ for Central Bank Digital Currency, and for other dominos: Fintech, Open Banking, the Great Re-set et al

As first published by IREF on www.irefeurope.org as an Online Article on 23rd November 2022:

Introduction

Up until recently the proponents of the cluster of financial developments around the Great Re-Set, Decentralized Finance, Central Bank Digital Currency, Financial Inclusion, Fintech, Open Banking et al have had things very much their own way: forming their own committees packed […]

FTX shines a light on crypto people – do we want them replacing our UK cash with their digital currency?

Sir Jon Cunliffe, Deputy Governor of Financial Stability, Bank of England, sees no contradiction between the rampant instability on Planet Cryptocurrency and the Bank’s plans to replace our cash with its own UK version of a cryptocurrency. This is the message today from the most senior person responsible for the stability of the UK currency.

Welcome […]

‘CAPTURE’ – a major new paper on the committees considering a UK Central Bank Digital Currency

UK payments have, over the last ten years, become increasingly digital and become the domain of a technocratic elite, working in tandem with Big Tech and the major payment card brands.

The UK’s ‘digital payments journey’ thus far has left an amount of damaging debris on the road behind it: Authorized Push Payment Fraud, inflationary Deductions-from-face-value […]

ISO20022 – The Great Leap Sideways

The payment industry’s migration to the ISO20022 XML data format promises much, or rather the list of promises is long and the same as it has been for a long time, and is very promising: richer data, easier data mining, easier compliance-checking and harmonization (aka everyone else is going to use it so we should […]

The Payment Systems Regulator’s PS22/2 Card-acquiring market remedies: final decision = surrender

On 6th October 2022 the PSR published its Final Decisions on its major and multi-year ‘work’ on the costs of accepting card payments for merchants. Costs, in this case, focuses on the service fees paid by a merchant to its appointed merchant acquirer. The all-in costs include the deductions-from-face-value, which the PSR has elected to […]

Apparatus for UK’s financial management is dead in the water

A major change in the financial management of the UK is needed. The current upsurge in inflation may have been triggered by energy prices, but the seedbed for it has been in the creation since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007/8. Policy formulation has receded into a […]

Architect of Test and Trace turns to reorganising UK’s payment systems

This article as it appeared on CommentCentral on 4 August 2021

A certain David Pitt, fresh from his triumphs as Chief
Operating Officer of Test and Trace, has been appointed as Chief Executive
Officer of Pay.UK, the company responsible for the UK’s main payment systems.

This is not a joke, although the timing is unfortunate, coinciding
with the unfolding pingdemic […]

UK’s New Payments Architecture now to be a bungalow

Title page of PSR’s latest emission on the scope and tendering process for NPA

What started out as a Temple of Solomon to revolutionise the UK’s payment systems will now be reduced to a more manageable bungalow-sized development. Multiple layers collapse down to one.

The
UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), who started this show rolling in 2015 by
creating […]