It’s been another tough month in terms of inflation. Global inflation appears to be getting out of control, hitting 13-year highs in the US and rapidly exceeding forecasts in the UK. Jason’s commentary on these increasingly concerning figures appeared in Daily Mail, Daily Express, This is Money (scroll down to 10.09 on the live blog), MoneyWeek, MSN and Disruption Banking.
If rising inflation wasn’t bad enough, the UK is still struggling with record low interest rates. What does this mean for consumers & savers? Read our thoughts in Daily Express, FT Adviser, MSN, European Business Magazine and Disruption Banking.
Central Bank Digital Currencies are coming, but how concerned should we be about the imminent launch of a new government-controlled currency? Read Jason’s opinion on CBDCs in The Week.
Wondering why Jason launched Glint and what our plans for the future are? Jason sat down with TechRound to discuss Glint, crowdfunding & alternative currencies.
Our big news was the successful closure of our crowdfunding round through Seedrs. US investors can still invest via Republic and join the 1,200 investors who have already joined the Glint community and smashed our fundraising target. Our funding announcement was covered by Greensheet, Fintech Futures, Finextra, The Fintech Times, Fintech Herald, Disruption Banking and The Armchair Trader.
This month also marked another Glint milestone as we processed over $250m in total transactions- yet another indication of the appetite for alternative currencies. Greensheet, Blockchain Tribune and Disruption Banking looked at the announcement in more detail.
Global rising inflation has been one of the biggest stories recently with the US, UK and China all experiencing rapid and worrying growth. In the UK, inflation passed the 2% target set by the Bank of England and we’re expecting it to hit 2.5% this year. Jason highlights the dangers of high inflation and what consumers can do to mitigate against it in his commentary in The Sun, Daily Express, MSN,Wealth Briefing, and Disruption Banking
This month, Jason was also interviewed by Forbes for a CEO profile and spoke to Investors’ Chronicle for a feature on the future of money and the role of alternative currencies.
Our crowdfunding round with Republic & Seedrs has continued to generate interest from the tech press. Earlier this month, the fundraising was covered in a round-up of key fintech news by The Fintech Times, whilst Crowdfund Insider provided an update on our successful fundraising after surpassing our £2m target on Seedrs.
Many of us are aware of some of the issues of fiat currencies, especially in periods of high inflation. Jason’s commentary for the Paytech special in The Fintech Times discussed the future of money and the alternative currency he expects to flourish (clue: it’s gold).
Previously, we asked you for your help and invited you to complete a survey so we could understand our clients’ motivations for saving and spending in gold. One of the most striking outcomes was the distrust of banks to protect our money – 68% of you said this. This was particularly interesting to the tech press with Crowdfund Insider and Disruption Banking covering the survey results.
Our big news this month is obviously the launch of a simultaneous crowdfunding round in the US and UK – through Republic and Seedrs respectively (the first time the platforms have offered a dual crowdfunding). So far we’ve raised over £1.25m with almost a month to go. The announcement of this crowdfunding was covered by Crowdfund Insider, Altfi, Finextra, Yahoo Finance, Benzinga, Disruption Banking, Fintech Alliance, Fintech Insight and industry thought leader Fintech without Borders. Jason also sat down with Innovate Finance to discuss crowdfunding and the future of money.
In other Glint news, we were delighted to be shortlisted for the Best Real-Time Payments Solution at the upcoming Fintech Futures PayTech Awards – it’s great to get more recognition of the work the team have put in to continuing to develop our payments system.
In welcome news for the industry and, of course, our clients, gold has rebounded over the last month. It’s up 6% since the beginning of May and around 11% since its trough in early March. This is even more impressive considering the recent performance of the markets and other assets such as cryptos. Some commentators have been claiming that this is an ideal time to buy and store gold, our thoughts were covered in Abu Dhabi’s The National.
In the UK, we had the Bank of England’s monthly interest rate announcement that the rate would remain unchanged at 0.1%. This is another blow to consumers as they are punished by a perfect storm of historically low-interest rates, rising inflation, record borrowing and continued quantitative easing. Jason’s comments appeared in This is Money, Daily Express & MSN.
It’s been another crazy month for cryptos with price hikes, huge collapses, Chinese crackdowns and some Twitter meddling from Musk. Jason discussed President Biden’s Capital Gains Tax bill and the impact on alternative currencies with MoneyWeek whilst our market commentary on Bitcoin, Ethereum & Dogecoin appeared in Yahoo Finance, Independent and TechRound. Just yesterday, Jason also spoke to Yahoo Finance to discuss the news that the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority banned an advert from crypto platform Luno encouraging Bitcoin purchases – including what this means for investors, future regulation and the factors driving the increased popularity of alternative currencies.
Alternative currencies dominated much of the news this month. This week, Ethereum hit a new record high and broke the £2,000 barrier for the very first time. Alternatives are now firmly established amongst consumers as a viable store of value and means of exchange as we all look to take greater control over how we save and spend our money. Our commentary on the latest crypto milestone appeared in two articles in The Sun (here and here), Daily Express and Yahoo Finance.
Has the crackdown on crypto begun? One of the biggest stories this month was the creation of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) taskforce by the Bank of England and HM Treasury. This is the strongest sign yet that the UK is looking to launch a CBDC and has potentially huge implications for our savings, purchasing power and privacy. Jason’s commentary appeared in some of the UK’s most influential newspapers including The Times, Daily Mail and Evening Standard as well as key financial websites including MSN, This is Money, MoneyWeek, Yahoo Finance, CryptoNews and UK Investor Magazine.
Earlier this month, the UK announced inflation continued to rise and is on track to meet the 2% target set by the Bank of England. The cash in our accounts already loses value by the day due to inflation outstripping the current miniscule interest rates – the potential introduction of negative interest rates would be catastrophic. Read our full commentary in the Daily Express.
Ever wondered how your savings have performed vs gold? We crunched the numbers and the value of gold holdings increased 41% over the last decade, whilst Cash ISAs have lost 2% in value over the same period. Our research and explanation behind cash’s fall in value appeared in Yahoo Finance and Fintech Zoom.
In last month’s Press Room we welcomed Emmanuel Ide to the leadership team, this key new hire appeared in Mondo Visione, Fintech Insight and Fintech Inshorts over the last couple of weeks.
Alternative currencies dominated much of the news this month. This week, Ethereum hit a new record high and broke the £2,000 barrier for the very first time. Alternatives are now firmly established amongst consumers as a viable store of value and means of exchange as we all look to take greater control over how we save and spend our money. Our commentary on the latest crypto milestone appeared in The Sun and Yahoo Finance.
Has the crackdown on crypto begun? One of the biggest stories this month was the creation of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) taskforce by the Bank of England and HM Treasury. This is the strongest sign yet that the UK is looking to launch a CBDC and has potentially huge implications for our savings, purchasing power and privacy. Jason’s commentary appeared in some of the UK’s most influential newspapers including The Times, Daily Mail and Evening Standard as well as key financial websites including MSN, This is Money, MoneyWeek, Yahoo Finance, CryptoNews and UK Investor Magazine.
Earlier this month, the UK announced inflation continued to rise and is on track to meet the 2% target set by the Bank of England. The cash in our accounts already loses value by the day due to inflation outstripping the current miniscule interest rates – the potential introduction of negative interest rates would be catastrophic. Read our full commentary in the Daily Express.
Ever wondered how your savings have performed vs gold? We crunched the numbers and the value of gold holdings increased 41% over the last decade, whilst Cash ISAs have lost 2% in value over the same period. Our research and explanation behind cash’s fall in value appeared in Yahoo Finance and Fintech Zoom.
In last month’s Press Room we welcomed Emmanuel Ide to the leadership team, this key new hire appeared in Mondo Visione, Fintech Insight and Fintech Inshorts over the last couple of weeks.
It’s been another busy month at Glint with plenty of government announcements! Plus we’ve welcomed a new addition to our leadership team as Emmanuel Ide joins Glint as our new Head of Engineering. Emmanuel has great plans to transform the user experience of our platform – his appointment was covered in Finextra.
UK borrowing hit £19tn in February – up a staggering 1170% on the year – eroding the value of our savings even further. Jason’s commentary appeared in the Daily Express and MSN looking at what this could mean for our personal finances.
The UK saw one of its biggest political events of the year earlier this month as Chancellor Rishi Sunak presented the annual Budget to parliament. He announced that over £400bn had been borrowed to support the UK through the pandemic and it’s likely that we haven’t felt the worst of the financial impact yet! Glint’s commentary from Budget day was covered by Tech Startups, Scottish Financial Review and Disruption Banking.
Jason met with Fintech Finance and his interview was published in The Fintech Magazine. During the interview, Jason discusses what led him to start Glint, why more clients are turning to gold through Glint’s platform and the long-term performance of gold.
In the UK, the Office for National Statistics announced the latest household spending statistics which hit the lowest level since 2015-16. Jason’s commentary on the announcement and how this impacts consumers and savers was published by The Fintech Times. He discusses how savers are forced to entrust even more of their wealth to banks as a result of historically low-interest rates, and the continued threat of negative interest rates later this year.
Jason’s article for Fintech Futures discussed the alternative currency revolution and the role of gold in securing our future financial security and taking control of our finances.
Democratising gold is one of the main reasons Glint was launched so we welcome anything that unlocks accessibility and allows consumers to take control of their finances. The World Gold Council joining the WealthiHer Network, which aims to promote female financial equality, is certainly something that should be applauded. Jason was asked for his thoughts on the partnership by Disruption Banking.
We all know that gold prices have dipped during 2021 but the long-term fundamentals that attracted us to gold still remain in place. Jason discussed some of the factors that are attracting increasing numbers of clients to gold and Glint with Disruption Banking.
We’re delighted to announce that we were named on TechRound’s Fintech 50, which highlights the innovation and success of fintech companies across the world. Jason’s blog for Elite Business discussed how the banking system punishes small businesses and how SMEs are looking at alternatives such as storing capital as gold and paying staff in gold through Glint It!
GameStop was one of the biggest stories of the month and our commentary on why private investors are turning their backs on the financial system appeared in the Independent (scroll down to 14:50 as this is a live blog). This suggests that unrestricted access to information through channels such as Reddit could lead to the greater democratisation of money.
In the UK, the Bank of England’s latest monetary policy announcement kept interest rates at 0.1% but paved the way for the introduction of negative interest rates which could mean consumers have to pay banks to save. Glint’s view in the Daily Mirror and Scottish Financial News argue that this is yet another blow to savers and will further impact their purchasing power.
Tesla’s purchase of Bitcoin was another major talking point this month. Commentary from Jason appeared in the Daily Express, MSN and Wealth Briefing suggesting that this should act as a wakeup call to banks and highlights their need to rapidly adapt to meet consumer demand. We also saw a rise in the value of Dogecoin as a result of celebrity endorsements. This sets a worrying precedent and private investors tying their financial security to a celebrity’s popular should concern us all. Our views can be seen in several articles in the Daily Express & MSN.
In a blog for Scottish Financial News, we looked at the rise of alternative global currencies as well as how and why gold and cryptos are challenging the dominance of the dollar. Jason was also interviewed by one of the Personal Finance Editors at the Mail on Sunday, one of the UK’s most well-read newspapers, discussing all things gold and money.
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