Business

Why Surging UK Household Debt Will Cause The Next Crisis

Below is my latest post on The Institutional Risk Analyst -- Chris

S&P futures were fractionally higher (+0.1% to 2,476) with all eyes on the Fed's rate decision as investors await another earnings deluge from companies including Facebook, Coca-Cola and Boeing. Asian and European shares were also higher, prompted by momentum from the latest US record high; the Dollar rebound continued while oil rose above $48 as copper hit a two year high.

A few weeks ago, we wrote a note about how European auto lenders are becoming just about as ridiculously undisciplined as their counterparts in the United States.  Apparently an ever-growing reliance of European millennials on lease financing has auto ABS investors worried about a potential crash in used car prices at some point in the not so distant future...that sound familiar to anyone?  (See: It's Not Just Americans, Europe's New Obsession With Auto Leases Is "Catastrophic For Used Car Prices")

A Singapore startup called TenX has designed a Visa card capable of debiting users’ cryptocurrency wallets, allowing them to pay for goods at brick-and-motor merchants with bitcoin, Ethereum and a handful of other digital currencies, according to Bloomberg.

The question now is: Will anybody use it?

TenX’s business model is straightforward: It allows its users to pay for goods in a given fiat currency, then “instantly converts” cryptocurrency from their wallet into the amount needed to cover the transaction.