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The blockchain technology behind well-known crypto-assets contains enormous potential for efficiency-enhancing and cost-saving applications for digitally recording subscriptions, safe custody and trading activities. Less benignly, there are widespread fears that an untrammelled move into an uncharted investment territory could, in the event of malfeasance or malfunction, critically undermine confidence and restrict future innovation.
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The issue of central bank digital currencies has come to the fore over the last two years. Although a relatively new popular phenomenon, digital currencies have existed for decades. This report, a collaboration between IBM Blockchain World Wire and OMFIF, explains the purpose of wholesale central bank digital currencies, as well as the motivations and business case for central banks to adopt wholesale CBDCs
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The Absa Africa Financial Markets Index, produced by OMFIF, provides a toolkit for countries seeking to strengthen their financial markets infrastructure. It tracks progress on financial market developments annually across a range a countries and indicators. This year's edition extends coverage to three additional countries - Angola, Cameroon and Senegal - and pays special attention to policies to enhance market growth, including financial inclusion and investor education.
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Thanks to the concentration of wealth in oil-rich economies and the development of harmonised regulatory standards, the Islamic finance market is more popular than ever. Islamic finance originally focused on the retail market, but now attracts mainstream investors. The industry boasts assets worth more than $2tn, and is expected to exceed $3tn by 2020.
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After the sun, the storm. The US economy is weathering an unusually buoyant period. But increasing signs that the labour market is overheating are raising the likelihood of more aggressive Federal Reserve tightening. This would increase the probability that, in the next one to three years, the US will face a new recession - inciting the Fed to restart unconventional monetary policies.
Read moreDonald Trump has been complaining loudly and often how much Jerome Powell's policy bothers him. In practice, the US president's freedom of action in firing a Fed chief is practically non-existent. The Fed has sought to defend its hard-won independence since the 1951 Treasury-Fed Accord, writes Darrell Delamaide.
Potential crypto-asset investors favour established jurisdictions such as Switzerland, the UK and US for trading and investment operations in this new asset class, according to a survey by investment firm London & Oxford and OMFIF published in a new report on the 'Global crypto-asset regulatory landscape'.
Theresa May is still standing. The UK prime minister has better cards in her hand than many of her opponents think. Her strengths are the lack of viable alternatives. May is much like the Brexit deal. Not to everyone's liking, but there is no better choice available, writes Meghnad Desai.
'Lots of people are playing up the idea of another referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, but this is wholly unlikely, as it wouldn't resolve anything. It would just prolong the state of uncertainty,' said David Marsh, chairman of OMFIF, speaking on CNBC.
Both the US and China want to pursue their domestic economic agendas without the complications of a falling renminbi, writes Mark Sobel. This could create an opening for unexpected co-operative action – a joint foreign exchange intervention operation to strengthen the renminbi.
Even if UK Prime Minister Theresa May loses her position in the light of outcries against her Brexit deal, the arrival of a new Conservative party leader would not change the parliamentary arithmetic behind agreement. If parliament votes against the deal, there are just five possible outcomes, writes Charles Grant.
Despite a weaker renminbi/dollar rate this year, the Chinese currency has increased its share in global reserves. Less than a decade after the launch of the renminbi internationalisation initiative, more than 60 central banks are estimated to have renminbi in their reserves, writes Gary Smith.
Britain's uncertain prospects for securing an exit deal from the EU and then securing backing from parliament were examined in an OMFIF briefing in London by Lord (Norman) Lamont, former UK chancellor of the exchequer, and Lord (Christopher) Tugendhat, former vice-president of the European Commission.
A discussion with Domenico Giannone, assistant vice-president at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Wed 28 Nov 2018
NOVEMBER | London
A discussion with Ignazio Angeloni, Member of the Supervisory Board, European Central Bank
Mon 10 Dec 2018
DECEMBER | London
A city lecture with Vítor Constâncio, vice-president of the European Central Bank who served from June 2010 – May 2018.
Wed 23 Jan 2019
JANUARY | London
Asset and reserve management seminar
Thu 31 Jan 2019
JANUARY
Gender Balance Index marking International Women’s Day
Thu 7 Mar 2019
MARCH
City Lecture with Patrick Harker, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Mon 25 Mar 2019
MARCH | London
The 2018 Absa Africa Financial Markets Index launched in Bali alongside the IMF-World Bank Group meetings. In its second year, the index is a premier indicator of the attractiveness of Africa’s capital markets, for use by investors and asset managers around the world.
Stock market volatility tends to reach its peak in October, underlined by famous crashes in 1929, 1987 and 2008. Cross-currents in the world economy make this October particularly pivotal, especially in the light of the tug of war between good news out of the US and bad news out of China.
Global growth and inflation figures, in addition to rising commodity prices and interest rates, point to the risk of staglation over the summer months. The geopolitical backdrop, and the threat of a US-China trade war, also has a whiff of stagflation about it.
The world is experiencing one of the longest economic expansions since records began and there's no end in sight, with muted inflationary pressures keeping interest rates low. Stock markets like this not too hot, not too cold 'Goldilocks' backdrop.
Global infrastructure financing has fallen short of its potential.Private sector investment and institutional investor capital are often raised as possible solutions for filling the infrastructure funding gap.
This month’s poll focuses on the UK’s top accountancy firms. Participants were asked: ‘With many people attributing at least some of the blame for the collapse of services firm Carillion to the ‘big four’ UK accounting firms, should their oligopoly on the audit market be reviewed?’
