How do Scottish banknotes work?
We’ve all heard at least one story from a Scottish citizen visiting London or a befuddled tourist who can’t understand why the shop just refused to accept the currency a bank gave them. And why not? It’s a perfectly legitimate bank note, right? ‘Well, It’s not legal tender in England!’ someone might say. But what […]
Biggest UK interest rate hike in decades
The news this week has been dominated by interest rate hikes across the West. On Tuesday, the Royal Bank of Australia announced a 0.25% increase taking their rate to 2.8%. This was followed on Wednesday by the US Fed who raised their rates by 0.75% to 4%. Finally, yesterday the Bank of England followed the […]
Who actually sets interest rates around the world?
Given the ongoing economic crises in various countries around the world, attention at the moment is rightly more focused on interest rate decisions than in normal times. The process for raising or lowering interest rates varies from country to country. For some, it’s a pretty simple decision made by the Finance Minister, for others, it […]
Markets react positively to Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister
It’s been a whirlwind few days again in the UK as we were introduced to our third Prime Minister this year! On Tuesday, Rishi Sunak walked through the famous door of Number 10 and set to work appointing a new government of equal parts continuity and change. In his first speech as PM, he recognised […]
Westminster in chaos as Chancellor is fired & economic plans reversed
Another week is soon to come to an end, yet a new round of high drama in the UK has just begun. At the time of writing, the Prime Minister has just sacked the Chancellor and seems to be in the process of fundamentally u-turning on the entire economic agenda that set the market plunging […]
How Sterling changed during the Queen’s reign
As the period of mourning for Her late Majesty the Queen comes to an end, we thought it would be fitting to take a look at how the Pound Sterling has changed over the course of her long 70 year reign. The 10 shilling note was the first to feature the Queens image Banknotes with […]
August was officially Sterling’s worst month since Brexit
As September began yesterday, we saw the official conclusion that August had been the worst month for Sterling since the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. August started with Sterling sitting at £1.21 to the US Dollar but over the course of month saw a slow and steady decline, ending down at £1.16. Not a good […]
GDP falls for the second quarter in a row.
This week has been considerably quieter economic data front, perhaps a relief given the volume of negative news recently. US inflation figures were released on Wednesday with consumer prices rising 8.5% in July, the rate of increase has been calmed slightly as fuel prices fell. No increase was recorded in CPI between June and July, […]
BoE Governor: Expect 13%+ Inflation and a Recession!
The key update of the week is that the Bank of England has increased its interest rate by 0.5%, the largest increase since the Bank’s operational independence in 1997. The rate rise comes on the back of a dismal economic forecast by the BoE that forecasted inflation rates of 13% by the end of the […]
Fears of recession loom as inflation spirals and confidence declines
This week has been dominated by the fears of a looming recession following the release of key GDP and confidence data. Significant news was released on Thursday when it emerged that the US economy shrank for a second consecutive quarter. This technical recession is due to a 0.9% GDP contraction for Q2 following a 1.6% […]