China starts major trial of state-run digital currency. China will begin trialling payments in its new digital currency in four major cities from next week, according to domestic media.
In recent months, China’s central bank has stepped up its development of the e-RMB, which is set to be the first digital currency operated by a major economy. It has reportedly begun trials in several cities, including Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu, as well as a new area south of Beijing, Xiong’an, and areas that will host some of the events for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Bitcoin Nears its Worst-Ever Bear Market; Down 80% Measured in dollars, this year's damage has been much more significant.
Roughly $700 billion has been wiped off cryptocurrencies' global market capitalization since the high, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com. China Starts World's Biggest Carbon Market. China set out a scaled-back vision to create the world’s biggest financial market aimed at limiting pollution in a move that signals its backing for the fight against climate change.
The government in Beijing said Tuesday it’s working on a carbon emissions trading system that will cover 1,700 utilities. That’s fewer than the 6,000 companies across a range of industries authorities were considering for inclusion as recently as a year ago. Policymakers also stopped short of naming a date for trading to begin. President Xi Jinping’s administration is moving cautiously in designing a system that essentially forces companies to pay for permits to pollute. 86% of UK Cars Bought on Credit. People trapped in a spiral of credit card debt would be protected by a cap on their interest payments under a Labour government, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, will say on Monday.
Speaking at the party’s annual conference in Brighton, McDonnell will announce plans to help the more than 3 million people in Britain who are paying far more in interest payments than they borrowed. Under the proposals there would be a total cap, meaning people would not have to pay back more than twice the amount of their credit card borrowings. Labour’s plan would bring the regulation of the credit card industry into line with rules on payday loan companies, which were subjected to these restrictions from 2015.
McDonnell said he was “calling upon the government to act now apply the same rules on payday loans to credit card debt”. “It means that no one will ever pay more in interest than their original loan,” he will say. Aus. Fund Manager Hands Back Clients' Cash Citing Looming Correction. Australian asset manager Altair Asset Management has made the extraordinary decision to liquidate its Australian shares funds and return "hundreds of millions" of dollars back to its clients, citing an impending property market "calamity" and the "overvalued and dangerous time in this cycle".
"Giving up management and performance fees and handing back cash from investments managed by us is a seminal decision, however preserving client's assets is what all fund managers should put before their own interests," Philip Parker, who serves as Altair's chairman and chief investment officer, said in a statement on Monday. This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Caption Settings Dialog Beginning of dialog window. ASX winners and losers - a snapshot Australian housing affordability worsens Low interest rates are fueling a high demand for housing despite tighter lending rules, says St.
Automation Removes 99% of Goldman Sachs Since 2000. At its height back in 2000, the U.S. cash equities trading desk at Goldman Sachs’s New York headquarters employed 600 traders, buying and selling stock on the orders of the investment bank’s large clients.
Today there are just two equity traders left. Automated trading programs have taken over the rest of the work, supported by 200 computer engineers. Marty Chavez, the company’s deputy chief financial officer and former chief information officer, explained all this to attendees at a symposium on computing’s impact on economic activity held by Harvard’s Institute for Applied Computational Science last month. US Consumer Bankruptcies Rise for the 1st Time Since 2010. A red flag that’ll be highlighted only afterwards as a turning point.
US bankruptcy filings by consumers rose 5.4% in January, compared to January last year, to 52,421 according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. In December, they’d already risen 4.5% from a year earlier. UK Insurer Admiral Pricing Car Policies Based on Facebook Posts. One of the biggest insurance companies in Britain is to use social media to analyse the personalities of car owners and set the price of their insurance.
The unprecedented move highlights the start of a new era for how companies use online personal data and will start a debate about privacy. Admiral Insurance will analyse the Facebook accounts of first-time car owners to look for personality traits that are linked to safe driving. For example, individuals who are identified as conscientious and well-organised will score well. The insurer will examine posts and likes by the Facebook user, although not photos, looking for habits that research shows are linked to these traits.
These include writing in short concrete sentences, using lists, and arranging to meet friends at a set time and place, rather than just “tonight”. Global Debt a Record $152tn. Humanity is $152 trillion in debt, putting us deeper in the red than we’ve ever been, according to the International Monetary Fund’s Fiscal Monitor.
Gross debt in the nonfinancial sector has more than doubled (in nominal terms) since the dawn of this century, with borrowing outpacing global growth. In 2002, gross debt amounted to 200 percent of gross domestic product — in 2015, that figure was 225 percent. Record $152trn Debt Alarms IMF. Eight years after colossal amounts of bad loans caused a financial meltdown that almost sunk the global economy, total debt has hit a new record level of $152tn, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.
The amount is equivalent to two and a quarter times the size of the world economy, and is rising. “The sheer size of debt could set the stage for an unprecedented private deleveraging process that could thwart the fragile economic recovery,” the IMF said. Sky-high debt levels, are part of the reason governments have been reluctant to stimulate stagnant economies through further borrowing, but the IMF urged governments to adopt “growth-friendly” policies to jolt economies out of stagnation. 70% in Developed Economies See Incomes Stagnate. Half a billion people in 25 of the west’s richest countries suffered from flat or falling pay packets in the decade covering the financial and economic crisis of 2008-09, according to a report highlighting the impact of the Great Recession on household incomes.
Research by the McKinsey Global Institute found that between 65% and 70% of people in 25 advanced countries saw no increase in their earnings between 2005 and 2014. All Swiss Government Debt Now Trading at Negative Yields. China's Newly Launched AIIB May Rival World Bank. Global development finance as we know it, may soon change with the launch over the weekend of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in Beijing, China. Seen as a rival to the World Bank, the AIIB is viewed as a means for China to flex its economic strength and push for the rebalancing of the international financial clout currently held by the US. China hopes to set AIIB apart from the World Bank and other development finance banks.
China believes that the World Bank does not adequately represent developing nations and there have been criticism that it imposes unreasonable demands on borrowers. The AIIB was first proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in October 2013.