The recent development in the payments industry, namely the rise of Fintech companies, has created an opportunity to revisit the economics of the payment system and the puzzling nature of profit in this industry. Major banks, credit card companies, and financial institutions have long controlled payments, but their dominance looks increasingly shaky.
U.S. labor department’s latest statistics, published on January 10th, suggested that the unemployment rate remained at a 50-year low of 3.5 percent. However, the same report indicates thatU.S. wage growth dropped below 3 percent. These two developments are in sharp contrast with…
The anxiaties about large financial corporations' debt-funded payouts—aka "stock buybacks"—is reemerging a decade after the financial crisis. Companies on the S&P 500 have poured more than $5.3 trillion into repurchasing their own shares since 2010. The root cause of most concerns is that stock buybacks do not contribute to the productive capacities of the firm.
In the recent world bank report published in the first week of January, the Washington D.C.-based group said there had been four waves of government debt accumulation over the last 50 years. In 2018, for instance, global debt climbed to…
As the final countdown to bring in 2020 begins, new concerns have emerged regarding the Fed’s continuous ability to control the interest rate. Developments in the financial market such as growing U.S. budget deficit, investors’ increased cash hoarding desire, and…
“I am a hybrid. I do independent films and also do Hollywood films – I love them both.” Spike Lee According to the recent series of reports published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) on December 10th, 2019, trading…
“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.” Jean De La Fontaine The shift in the provision of financial intermediation away from traditional banks towards the shadow banking system highlights the evolving structure of…
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new” -Socrates If the Fed’s understanding of the existing problems in the repo market is weak or incomplete, it might attempt to…
“No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.” ― Haruki Murakami Following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), most central banks around the world are facing pressing challenges to reach the inflation…