Worldcrunch
While other major economies are taking steps to tighten credit, China is acting to cheapen it, in order to revive its economic activity and help big firms repay their debts. But will it fuel global inflation, or worse, stagflation?
Expect use of blockchain, the digital record-keeping system, to become generalized this year in banks and elsewhere.
NEW YORK — Should central banks embrace cryptocurrencies, or even pioneer their own? In a nutshell, no. Crypto assets are an unusual innovation, still in flux and often poorly understood. Trying to centralize them in a bureaucracy is exactly the wrong way to go. Yet China’s central bank claims it is working toward a blockchain-based digital currency. Singapore has already experimented in this direction. The phrase “Fedcoin” is sometimes bandied about, though I’ve seen no concrete sign of the U.S. Federal Reserve jumping on this bandwagon. In its recent quarterly review, the Bank of International Settlements asked central banks to […]
The Bitcoin rate spike, still alive despite bitter divisions in the community that supports the cryptocurrency, has laid bare the biggest problem with Bitcoin: Compared with fiat currencies, it’s painfully inconvenient and expensive to use as a means of payment. Bitcoin is set up to reward users for verifying transactions. Miners who package transactions into “blocks’ receive two kinds of rewards: The additional Bitcoin they produce by using their hardware to solve mathematical problems (an income stream that will eventually cease since 21 million bitcoins are the maximum that can be mined) and the transaction fees paid by users to […]
Oh, to watch the sun setting over the Ganges and the ghats of Varanasi …
Brussels punishes Apple and the call from Washington follows promptly: Deutsche Bank owes them $14 billion. The race for the White House doesn’t help matters.
More than eight years after the beginning of the financial crisis, U.S. banking groups are dominating the financial world more than ever. This leadership has technical, political and legal grounds. But it also relies on one quintessentially American quali
Concepcion is the first place in Colombia where the vast majority of transactions involve electronic banking via mobile phones, staying well ahead of even northern Europe.
China’s investments and loans in Latin America ensure the flow of raw matericals to China and products back to the American continent. The lender has the long view in this formula.
While European politicians have been hailing an economic uptick in the troubled Greek economy, Greeks themselves have yet to see any real signs of rebound. What explains the divide?
-Editorial- BEIJING – At the recent International Investment Forum, Justin Lin Yifu, the former World Bank chief economist, was asked how he personally invested his money. “All my money is in the bank, in fixed deposits,” he said, before adding with a smile, “When I sleep at night, they are still earning interest for me, […]
AP (USA), BBC, THE GUARDIAN (UK) Worldcrunch NICOSIA – Cyprus has no intention of leaving the euro zone, President Nicos Anastasiades said in a press conference on Friday. “In no way will we experiment with the future of our country,” declared President Anastasiades. He said the situation of the country had been “contained” following its […]
BBC, REUTERS, TWITTER Worldcrunch NICOSIA – Banks in Cyprus have reopened Thursday after a two-week closure as the government was forced to accept a strict European Union rescue package to avoid bankrupcy. As discussions between the EU and the International Monetary Fund took place, eventually culminating in Sunday night’s late bailout deal, the doors had […]
NICOSIA – The festival atmosphere on this sunny morning in Nicosia doesn’t match the bad vibes coming out of Brussels. The Faneromeni church in the heart of Cyprus’s capital is decked out with garlands made of hundreds of blue and white Greek flags and Cypriot flags with the shape of the island nation depicted in […]
BLOOMBERG, REUTERS Worldcrunch BRUSSELS – European banks climbed after Cyprus reached an overnight, last-minute deal with its international creditors on a 10 billion-euro ($13 billion) bailout. European and Asian shares rallied on Monday at the news of the rescue bailout, with U.S. yields also rising, thus ending a week of financial panic worldwide. In Brussels, […]
With his proposal to cut bonuses for European bankers, Belgian politician Philippe Lamberts has become public enemy No. 1 for Britain’s financial industry. Nothing could make him happier.
KOREA TIMES, YONHAP, KOREA INFORMATION SECURITY AGENCY (South Korea), AP Worldcrunch SEOUL – Two banks and three major broadcasting stations in South Korea went into shutdown mode on Wednesday in what is a suspected hacking from North Korea. According to Korean news agency Yonhap, three broadcasters, three banks and two insurance firms reported to the […]
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG Worldcrunch NICOSIA – Global markets tumbled Monday as new doubts spread about the solvency of the eurozone with the Cypriot government preparing to impose a new levy on bank deposits in order to qualify for bailout funds. Finance ministers in the eurozone Sunday had demanded that Cypriots pay up to 10% of their […]
NICOSIA – The moment you arrive in Cyprus you sense something about the little eastern Mediterranean island that sets it apart from its European neighbors. There are an unusual number of men in suits carrying briefcases. And the bright billboards on the streets leading from the airport have Cyrillic writing on them. Some of the […]
FRANCE 24 (France), CNN (USA) Worldcrunch FRANKFURT – European Union finance ministers have agreed on a deal giving the European Central Bank (ECB) new powers to supervise eurozone banks. This agreement came early Thursday after the ministers held talks for more than 14 hours in Frankfurt following months of tense Franco-German divisions. All finance ministers […]
MADRID – Anyone who has ever been to Madrid knows the Plaza de España. But today, you might not recognize it. The whole area, formerly prosperous and energetic, is a window on the crisis raging throughout Spain. Along the sides of the Plaza and in the side streets, there are entire rows of closed storefronts, […]
KIGALI – A customer and a bank clerk nearly came to blows recently in Kigali. The customer had asked the clerk to help him fill in the withdrawal slip in English, but the clerk refused. “How are we supposed to be able to fill in a document in English if you can’t do it yourself?” […]