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Green Finance: Making the Transition to a Climate-Resilient Future
A Digital Future: Financial Services and the Generation Game

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A new era in finance

Bitcoin may be risky investment, but the technologies that underpin it are a safe bet to disrupt the finance sector.

The price of Bitcoin, the best known and most widely used example of a cryptocurrency, has followed a roller coaster trajectory in the past 18 months. This erratic behavior, combined with Bitcoin’s reputation as an enabler for criminal activity, means that serious investors may not consider cryptocurrencies to be an asset class worth considering.

Blockchain revolution

The technological mechanism that underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin could theoretically be used to anonymously verify any kind of transaction – and its impact could be enormous.

Bitcoin is the first and best known example of a cryptocurrency, a system that uses the principles of cryptography to allow value to be exchanged without a middleman such as a government or bank.

Money with no middleman

The defining innovation of cryptocurrency Bitcoin is not that it is digital – only a tiny proportion of the world’s money takes the form of physical cash today – but that it is decentralised. No central authority governs, monitors or controls its use, which is one reason it has proved so popular in the criminal underground.

Whatever happens to Bitcoin itself – whether it gains mainstream adoption or fizzles out as a fad – the point has been made that a decentralised currency is possible, and the technological mechanism that underpins has been proven.  

Islamic finance: The race is on

Global banks like Goldman Sachs have joined the race to gain market share in the fast-growing Islamic finance industry. Can incumbent banks that have been traditionally more domestic-focused compete?

Shareholder meetings

Local currency debt: Laggard

Is the euro zone crisis over?

Concerns about the currency union's imminent collapse have faded following decisive central-bank intervention. However, major political, economic and financial risks persist that continue to undermine the euro area's long-term viability.

Seismic shifts in investment management

Report Summary

The UK investment management industry is at a turning point. Traditional active managers have already had to adapt to changes in the institutional market, but now they face a confluence of trends – from regulation to pension auto-enrolment to the growth of passive investing – that could radically reshape the retail side of their industry as well.

As the industry experiences these seismic shifts, several key trends emerge.

Don't bank on it

Since the financial crisis British small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have struggled to access finance through banks. But there is also a fundamental problem with the way SMEs bank.

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