The first quarter of 2021 witnessed increasing institutional involvement in cryptocurrencies and public companies Tesla and Square join Microstrategy in adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets. Source: CoinDesk
Covid-19 Triggers Second Worst Sell-off
Global stock markets and in particular the S&P 500 index had once of the largest sell-offs in history as highlighted by the chart above. Only during the 1987 stock market crash ‘Black Monday’ did we have a steeper sell-off with the market falling on average 2.5% per day. Image source: Tastytrade
Would you do a Vegan Christmas?
Would you consider a meat-free holiday season? I’m all for a beef-less Wellington with a few glasses of Nosecco. UK supermarkets (and around the world) there is a growing drive to provide more vegan options to support sluggish retail sales as consumers (finally) are being healthy and environmentally conscious.
Scotland Hosts Ethical Finance Summit
Earlier this month, Scotland hosted the Ethical Finance Summit organised by the Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) which organises and coordinates a series of programmes promoting finance for positive change and bringing together leaders in Islamic and conventional finance from around the world. The summit aimed to “help define and shape the transition to a […]
Courage, Compassion and Confidence
So proud of the Know You More team and founders Tim Mart and Chirag Mehta for winning The Scottish Herald Digital Business Awards in the Social Enterprise category. Having won the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) International Award for Coaching last year, it was great to see Know You More being recognised on home turf. With […]
Business Blockchain Solutions
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is on a path to disrupt many aspects of business and society that deal with the coordination of information and trust. DLT has the potential to become the new layer for economic value transfer within the modern technology stack (also referred to as the internet of value). It also has, through […]
The Impact of AI in UK
The UK was the crucible of the Industrial Revolution and is one of the crucibles of the Intelligence Revolution. It is home to world-beating artificial intelligence (AI) companies and world-class academic centres of AI research. It is well placed to reap great overall economic benefits from the development of AI, but it is not yet […]
London Emergence As Fintech Ecosystem
In the early days of fintech, much was made of the potential of start-ups to disrupt the retail banking industry winning over customers on the virtue of improved user experience and capitalising on a decline in levels of confidence in banks following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)1. London proved to be a remarkably fertile ecosystem […]
Islamic Fintech Startups in UK
The Islamic Finance Industry holds much promise, with assets expected to reach $3.9 trillion by 2023 according to Thomson Reuters, however, Islamic Fintech is at the very beginning of an exciting, transformative journey for the industry, one still dominated by largely domestic and OIC-based financial institutions. A young, digitally native Muslim demographic that is on […]
UK Market-Based Finance
Ultra low rates, new regulations and the need to invest in updating their businesses mean many UK and global banks are struggling to make their cost of capital. This will drive changes to firms’ business models as they look to improve efficiency, resilience and customer experience. Technology is enabling unbundling of activities which historically were […]