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“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him”
MADE IN BRITAIN Boasting that products are “Made in Britain” could add more than £2bn to the UK economy, recent research from Barclays showed - but it’s not just the flag that’s valuable. It’s the flavours. Appetite for British branding is particularly strong in emerging markets, where buyers are significantly more willing to pay a premium for British products than people in developed nations. This trend matches ONS data showing that UK exports to non-EU countries are growing at a much faster rate than exports to EU countries. In July 2014, exports grew by £500m to non-EU markets, five times more than the increase to EU countries.
‘BITCOIN WILL BECOME THE NEW GOLD’ Virtual currency Bitcoin is approaching a tipping point, the Institute of Directors heard today at its annual convention Speaking at the Institute of Directors’ annual convention in the Royal Albert Hall, Jon Matonis, Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation claimed that “When it clicks, we’re going to reach an inflection point and Bitcoin will become the new gold.” The Bitcoin Foundation is a lobbying group founded in 2012 that is aiming to “standardise, protect and promote” the use of bitcoin, but Mr Matonis claimed that countries such as Argentina were already adopting virtual currencies widely as trust in government declined and inflation rates increased. “Half of the world’s population is unbanked,” said Mr Matonis. “They can’t even sign up for an online university course because they don’t have a credit card. When they try to better themselves they run into these payment barriers.” While Bitcoin has issued $6bn worth of currency since it launched five years ago, it has both struggled to attract mainstream adoption and also increasingly come to the attention of regulators. Mr Matonis said central banks could regulate people converting Bitcoin to other currencies, but could not currently regulate transactions conducted entirely in Bitcoin. He said users retained the choice to maintain privacy. “Money doesn’t do bad things, people do bad things,” he said, in
answer to a question about whether he felt guilt over what could be bought online with the currency. He described Bitcoin as “a non-political monetary unit that transcends borders.”
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