Are financial markets ignoring the Trump risk?;  Trump’s First 100 Days: The most likely areas of initiatives;  Tesco bank hack: Challenger banks in the digital age & the need for intermediaries;  India gets away with scrapping and reissuing overnight most of Rupees in circulation

Are financial markets ignoring the Trump risk?

What I believe voters focused on was firstly that Trump appeared to have turned from aggressive electioneer into political pragmatist, which meant he would not pose an immediate risk to the current positive upward momentum of US economic growth. Secondly, they focused on the combination of this Republican Party President elect coming into government with a Republican US Congress and his immediate policy focus on fiscal stimulus through infrastructure improvement programs to create well paid construction jobs for the lesser educated.

Trump’s First 100 Days: The most likely areas of initiatives

We would expect that in all probability Trump will focus on the quick wins of tax cuts and announcements of infrastructure modernisation support programs and other fiscal stimuli that will benefit wider parts of the underprivileged parts of society to gain time to progress with his more substantial promises. Much will hinge on how collaborative he will find the Republican Congress and how much he can keep the public support momentum of his election campaign alive to put pressure on his fellow politicians. 

Tesco bank hack: Challenger banks in the digital age & the need for intermediaries

In what has been described by cyber-security experts as the “most serious” and visible attack to ever occur in the UK banking sector, we believe the widely media publicised Tesco ‘hack’ highlights the growing pains of the new challenger banks in an increasingly digital age. It also shines a light the rising importance of expert intermediaries, such as financial advisers and the ability of institutions to service their customers in the face of continued branch closures.

India gets away with scrapping and reissuing overnight most of Rupees in circulation

The supply of money (currency circulation) in India has seen a sharp increase over the past year, rising 17.3% year-on-year in October, contributing almost 20% of the overall increase in the money supply over the same time frame. We believe these reforms are likely to lead to increased use of bank accounts for cash deposits and as time passes more transactions will take place within the banking system. This should allow the central bank to improve the effectiveness of monetary policy via the transmission mechanism of the banks.

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