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

Published on 2 December 2022

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 […]

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

Published on 21 November 2022

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 […]

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

Published on 7 November 2022

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 […]

ISO20022 – The Great Leap Sideways

Published on 13 October 2022

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 […]

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

Published on 6 October 2022

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 […]

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

Published on 18 August 2022.

Based on an article published on www.facts4eu.org on 12 August 2022.

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 […]

Payment technocrats have crippled EU’s ability to impose biting sanctions on Russia

Original IREF article of 16 March 2022 accessed on 21 March 2022

Published on 23 March 2022

The EU recently announced partial financial sanctions on Russia, designed to keep payments for energy moving. The EU accepted the contention – disproved below – that a bank either gets cut off from SWIFT, the global financial telecommunications network, completely […]

UK adopts European approach to SWIFT sanctions over Russia

Brexit-Watch article where this piece was originally published

Published on 7 March 2022

The UK’s financial sanctions over the Ukraine invasion fall well short of cutting Russia off SWIFT, maxing out on the usual self-congratulatory hyperbole whilst opening up significant risk. When we should be distinguishing our PR approach from that of the Kremlin, we instead get […]

Scholz needs a SWIFT decision – cut Russia off or lose American bank support for the Eurosystem

What is SWIFT? Screenshot of its homepage

Published on 26 February 2022

As already published on Facts4EU and Brexit-Watch

It has been reported that Chancellor Scholz has rejected the proposal that Russia be cut off from the SWIFT system as a punishment for its invasion of Ukraine. The Guardian has disseminated misinformation that it would anyway do little […]

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

This article as it appeared on CommentCentral on 4 August 2021

Published 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 […]