The old playbook for inflation does no longer apply

Post-pandemic inflation in major developed economies has reached levels we have not had to wrestle with in two generations. Unsurprisingly, this has led to widespread calls for central banks to tighten monetary policy aggressively. Financial markets have quickly repriced their monetary policy outlook and markets now expect in our opinion at least seven incremental...

A New Year – A New Challenge – Regulating Low Earth Orbit

The first flight of Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket back in 2010 launched a new space age. Since SpaceX developed its first reusable rocket, the costs of sending satellites into orbit have plummeted, opening up a multi-billion-dollar market for thousands of companies around the world. Arguably, Musk has done more than anyone since Neil...

Tech Wars are becoming the titanic struggle for supremacy

Technology has turned geopolitical. The US has blocked semiconductor exports to China. In turn, China has looked to limit US access to rare earth minerals, crucial to the manufacture of many tech products. Several countries have banned China’s Huawei from running their 5G telecommunications networks. India has also banned the Chinese-owned viral social media...

Europe’s Digital Economy needs less Bureaucracy and more Funding

Many competing motives are at work when the EU ramps up its determination to assert control over US Internet giants. One is anger that they abuse their market dominance. Another is fear that they threaten the health of Europe's democracies. But as often as not, the strongest motivation is the feeling that Europe is...

European banks need to focus on cost-cuts rather than cross-border transactions

The calls for cross-border European banking transactions are mounting again. Not for the first time, we are being told that consolidation of international banking groups will “fix” the problems faced by the industry, this time those caused by the pandemic. Over the years, various transaction combinations of UniCredit, Société Générale or Commerzbank have been touted,...

Europe’s challenge in finding the right balance in digital regulations

It has long been the vision of European policymakers to make the continent a centre of digital innovation to rival the US west coast and China. With almost half a billion people across some of the world’s most advanced economies, there is no inherent reason why Europe should lag behind. The EU is about to...

EU centralizes market oversight in targeting ‘stable coins’

The EU has embarked on a push for greater centralized supervision of financial markets, setting out an oversight regime for crypto assets and pledging to learn from the German Wirecard scandal. The European Commission last month proposed a regulatory system for so-called stablecoins, such as the Facebook-backed Libra initiative, and other cryptocurrencies, saying that the...

One way to save the euro is by turning it into a digital currency

When European economic weakness turns into recession, “every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”- which will apply to the Eurozone countries. Increasing economic divergence will put strains on the Eurozone that could - in a worse case - lead to its collapse. The European Monetary Union (EMU) project has failed to reach...

Global Economies edge into downturn

As President Donald Trump intensifies his trade war with China, and as factories slow in major industrial nations, world commerce is deteriorating rapidly, a perilous development that threatens the health of the global economy. Most economists still predict that a global recession remains unlikely, even us growth slows. But in our opinion the dangers...

World Economic Growth – let’s say goodbye

Global markets were seized by fear last month that trade wars were slowing growth in Germany, China and the United States. But the story here in our opinion is far bigger than President Trump and his tariffs. The post war miracle is over - please do understand that. since the financial crisis of 2008, the...

European growth sustain a recession of Germany’s economy?

But Ms. Lagarde will have to consider what the central bank can do if the situation gets worse. When Germany’s official statistics office reported that the economy shrank 0.1% in the second quarter, shock waves rippled through stock markets around the world. The reaction reflected the degree to which Germany sets the tone for the...

EU Court to rule on our Personal Data

The EU’s highest court has been asked to decide whether the way Facebook and other technology companies transfer user’s pictures, emails and others personal data to the US should be outlawed, in a decision that will have huge implications for a sector. Judges in Ireland, where Facebook and other tech companies have their European headquarters, have finally asked the European Court...

Bank of England grapples with unpredictable risks of a no-deal Brexit

Central bankers in general have to live with unpredictability. But as much as possible, they prefer risks they can quantify. Monetary policy never deals with the certain, but it is relatively comfortable when handling known “unknowns”. What central bankers find very difficult to deal with is the kind of risk to the UK economy...

How US banks took over the financial world during the last decade and how European national champions could regain vigour through mergers with rivals

After the fall of Lehman Brothers 10 years ago, there was a public debate about how the leading American banks had grown “too big to fail”. But that debate overlooked the larger story, about how the global markets where stocks, bonds and other financial assets are traded had grown worrisomely large. By the eve of the 2008 crisis, global financial...