Centtrip: Leading FX entrepreneurs launch travel currency startup in London January 18, 2015 Three foreign exchange entrepreneurs will today launch a new travel money firm, Centtrip, a London-based startup which aims to cut currency conversion charges for consumers. Centtrip founders Tony North, Brian Jamieson and Daniel Butcher previously founded Schneider Foreign Exchange and HiFX, foreign exchange businesses that were recently sold for a combined £350m. “We are not [...]
Indian central bank cuts interest rates for the second time this year March 4, 2015 The central bank in Asia's third largest economy surprised investors last night, by cutting its policy repo rate from 7.75 per cent to 7.5 per cent, the second time it's made such a cut this year. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said a weaker economy had pushed it to make the cut outside its [...]
Aberdeen Asset Management share price hit by outflows after client pulls £4bn July 28, 2014 Europe’s biggest independent fund manager Aberdeen Asset Management fell more than five per cent in trading yesterday after it reported a small dip in the amount of cash it managed for customers. Aberdeen, head by chief executive Martin Gilbert, said one institutional customer pulled £4.2bn on their own from the group’s equity products, driving the [...]
Danes drop rates further below zero to chase euro February 5, 2015 DENMARK’S policy makers cut interest rates further into negative territory yesterday in an attempt to keep the krone pegged to the euro. The headline policy rate was cut from minus 0.5 per cent to minus 0.75 per cent. The krone-euro peg is a decades long arrangement where the Danish central bank sets interest rates and [...]
Euro tumbles to new nine-year low after Swiss central bank slashes interest rates January 15, 2015 The tumbled to new nine-year low after the Swiss central bank slashed interest rates to -0.75 per cent and scrapped its currency "ceiling." The euro fell to $1.1685 against the US dollar following the shock announcement by its central bank. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 initially shed 2.1 per cent before recovering to trade down 1 [...]
Small firms still not prepared for rate rises February 17, 2015 BRITAIN’S small firms worry that an interest rate rise is a threat to their business, despite the Bank of England’s promises that any hike will be small and slow. Two-thirds of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are concerned about the idea of monetary tightening, a study by Lloyds Bank found, as the era of rock-bottom [...]
Asset bubbles may be forming but rapid rate hikes would only jeopardise growth March 24, 2015 Everybody seems to agree on the need for full employment and price stability. But these objectives leave central bankers with a perennial dilemma when managing an economy: act too soon in normalising monetary policy and they’ll prevent the attainment of full employment; act too late and they’ll damage price stability. It is less a matter [...]
Euro loses one per cent against the dollar as markets feel the impact of quantitative easing March 10, 2015 The euro has fallen further against the dollar today, after the European Central Bank (ECB) launched its much-anticipated quantitative easing programme. The single currency briefly fell below the $1.07 mark in late afternoon trading, or down more than one per cent, taking it to its lowest level since 2003. It wasn't helped by the [...]
When a currency ceiling’s broken January 15, 2015 The Swiss policy U-turn spooked markets – Chris Papadopoullos explains the change WHAT is an exchange rate cap? Foreign currencies can be bought or sold and have a price just like any other good such as a loaf of bread or a newspaper. The exchange rate can be thought of as the price of one [...]
Greece may not default – but still be insolvent – CNBC Comment April 20, 2015 How important is Greece to Europe? The real answer is that nobody really knows. But time doesn’t stand still, and we are now moving closer to some very real debt repayment deadlines. Athanasios Orphanides, former member of the European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council, told me last week that he thinks the ECB is in [...]