Swift Sanctions on Russia: How Cutting Off Banks Applies Pressure

A powerful coalition of democracies have announced that they will cut off some Russian banks from the global payment system Swift.

Here’s how Swift works, and how the move could ramp up pressure on Russian President Putin.

What are fintechs? - Decoding: Banks - Episode 8

From 11:FS. It's not just a buzzword. Fintechs have changed the landscape of financial services forever but how did they get here and what threat do they pose to traditional banks?

Digital geopolitics - Russia is trying to build its own great firewall

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has portrayed his aggression toward Ukraine as pushing back against Western advances. For some time he has been doing much the same online. 

He has long referred to the internet as a “CIA project”. His deep belief that the enemy within and the enemy without are in effect one and the same means that if Alexei Navalny, Mr Putin’s foremost internal foe, uses YouTube—his video of the president’s seaside palace was viewed more than 120m times—then YouTube and its corporate parent, Google, are enemies, too.

Faced with such “aggression”, Mr Putin wants a Russian internet that is secure against external threat and internal opposition. He is trying to bring that about on a variety of fronts: through companies, the courts and technology itself.

Jointly with China, Russia has stalled UN talks aimed at defining responsible state behaviour in cyberspace, instead insisting on “information sovereignty”—code for doing what ever it pleases.

Read THE ECONOMIST's full analysis HERE.

Tariff evasion on imports from China

 

"An easy way to avoid Tariffs? Make or produce your goods and products in the good old USA. It’s very simple!” 

In the days when Twitter was the main medium for presidential proclamations, that was what Donald Trump recommended to companies using China as a manufacturing base. He was half right: avoiding tariffs has proved to be quite simple. What he failed to see, though, was that avoidance is an eminently viable strategy for companies staying put in China.

The scale of avoidance is, to use a non-technical term, huge. A giant discrepancy that has opened up between Chinese and American trade data provides a window onto the tariff-dodging that has occurred over the past three years since America slapped duties on Chinese products.

So what is happening and how are they doing it? Find out more HERE. 

Will Banks Mint Their Own Stablecoins?

The USDF Consortium has set out to build a system for bank-minted stablecoins that would blend the attractions of digital currency, blockchain administration and faster payments. In time this could improve payments and other experiences for both companies and consumers.

To date, many of the uses for stablecoins — digital currencies denominated and tied to fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar — have been to facilitate other digital currency transactions. But the banking industry has fresh designs on the stablecoin. Beyond business payments, early intentions are to use the technology for consumer payments, as well. Also envisioned are financial marketplaces and crypto and securities lending.

Want to find out more? Check out the details form THE FINANCIAL BRAND HERE. 

"Most People Have No Idea What Is Coming..." - Charlie Munger's WARNING

Charlie Munger warns investors of what’s ahead for the markets. He says, the trouble that’s coming could be worse and harder to fix than what was experienced during Volcker’s era that ended up with a huge recession. Being a vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and the closest partner (right hand man) of Warren Buffett, Charles T. Munger has a net worth of around $2 billion. He is a profoundly wise man who is absolutely worth listening to, especially when it comes to investing, the psychology of wealthy people, rationality, and life experience.

How has software evolution influenced banking? - Decoding: Banks - Episode 7

From 11:FS. The invention of the computer revolutionised banking in the 1950s. But in the decades since, advances in software have left banks out in the cold. Then, in the 1990s, the Internet changed everything.