Published on 4 November 2017
The ECB has now issued its figures for the TARGET2 imbalances as at 31st August 2017.
The figures are large enough, but they are already netted down once, from the original balances on the 552 current accounts that the TARGET2-participating central banks hold with one another in order to clear and settle […]
Published on 31 October 2017
The ECB’s version of Quantitative Easing – called “Asset Purchase Programmes” or “APP” – had been running at €60 billion a month and over a prolonged period, until the ECB announced last week that it was reducing new APP to €30 billion a month.
The market’s knee-jerk reaction was that this meant […]
Published on 27 October 2017
Delighted to have been included in the acknowledgments in this new book co-authored by Dr Gerard Lyons, chief economist for a series of leading banks, and Liam Halligan, columnist at the Sunday Telegraph.
Specifically on p187-8 in the section “Tax and Spend”, they referenced my Brexit Papers 4 and 5 for Global […]
Published on 24 October 2017
There are growing concerns about the safeguarding regime for client funds held by eMoney Institutions. eMoney is now being used as a bread-on-the-table payment mechanism, rather than for occasional remittances or for holiday money. Then both the amount being held and the duration it is held for increase, as well as […]
Published on 28 April 2017
In delivering a course on Advanced Cash Management yesterday, we always have a portion about Notional Pooling as a variation on cash-collateralised lending, and an explanation of Risk-Weighted Assets and credit risk generally. I usually bring on the example that no lender should advance funds to a low-cost airline without security, […]
Published on 10 April 2017
So apparently the Bank of England had some knowledge of the rate-rigging when it was going on, according to the UK newspapers today.
LIBOR as a reference rate was viewed for 30 years as the supreme neutral benchmark, the rate at which prime banks offer deposits to one another in the London […]
Published on 9 February 2017
The imbalances within the ECB’s TARGET2 payment system have risen to same levels as they were in the midst of the last Euro debt crisis. These are the amounts that the different Eurozone National Central Banks lend to one another overnight, in order to settle mutual payment obligations. In other words […]
Published on 27 January 2017
There is no end in sight to the low-yield environment around the Euro and all currencies associated with it. This is the meaning of the European Central Bank’s announcement that it is prolonging its Qualitative Easing programme. Even if the US starts to increase rates, this will not alter the ECB’s […]
Published on 23 March 2015
Having looked at the latest discussions on UK public spending and the European Investment Bank’s plan for their strategic investment fund, the situation looks ever more like my cartoon, with loads of money draining out of the patient and not so much going in.
The parties representing Irish, Welsh and Scottish nationalists […]
Published on 1 March 2015
The Smith Commission was established to convert the ‘vows’ made by Cameron, Clegg and Miliband to sway the Scottish referendum result – from a narrow ‘No’ to independence to a wider and decisive ‘No’.
In his follow-up paper to last year’s influential study of the options for an independent Scotland’s currency, Bob […]