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This depends on many factors, but you can still determine it nonetheless. Here's how you can do it.

Which cryptocurrency?

First, remind yourself which cryptocurrency you will be buying or choose one if you haven't decided yet. Here are the most popular types of cryptocurrency to choose from:

There is no right or wrong cryptocurrency to buy, so consider all your options and make a choice you will be satisfied with.

Why are you buying it?

The next thing you should do is think of why you are buying the cryptocurrency you chose. Consider what you will be doing after you purchase the cryptocurrency. Are you going to sell it? Or maybe you will be donating it or gifting it to someone?

This point is very important as it will decide your further actions. You must know what goals you are pursuing so that you can find the best means to achieve them. Besides, some cryptocurrencies might have technical restrictions that will prevent you from doing what you want to do.

Remember that the cryptocurrency market is constantly evolving and changing. For instance, there’s this new concept of stablecoin being developed that may be the next big thing in the world of cryptocurrencies.

“Stablecoin initiatives are developing at a rapid pace. Adoption of stablecoin, a form of collateralized cryptocurrency pegged to a stable fiat currency like the yen or dollar are being debated by central banks,” says Robert Anazalone, an expert on cryptocurrencies.

What is your financial situation?

You are probably aware that some cryptocurrencies are more expensive than others, so if you are on a budget, you probably won't be able to buy them. You have to take into account your financial situation before going online and looking for your cryptocurrency.

“Due to the limitations placed on capacity, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum see higher transaction fees when the networks become congested,” writes Kyle Torpey, a writer and a specialist on Bitcoin, in an article for Forbes.

At the same time, this point is directly tied up with the next one as the current state of the market will influence the price of your chosen cryptocurrency. Sometimes, even a usually cheap currency may cost more due to the fluctuations in the market. This can also influence what you will be buying and when.

What is the current state of the market?

Last but not least, think of the current state of the market. Research and read about what is going on so that you are aware of the situation and clearly know what you are doing. Analyze the data you collect and decide whether or not it's the right time to buy cryptocurrency.

You should be conducting such research and analysis regularly so that you can determine the best time for buying your chosen type of cryptocurrency.

Clem Chambers, the CEO of private investors website ADVFN.com and author of Be Rich, The Game in Wall Street and Trading Cryptocurrencies: A Beginner’s Guide, says: “Market timing is incredibly difficult, especially in a hugely volatile asset like bitcoin.”

Final Thoughts

To sum up, try to be skeptical of what you read online when someone is claiming that it is the right time to buy cryptocurrency. Read and research or seek help from a professional adviser to understand when is the right time to buy and which cryptocurrency to choose.

This was authored by digital marketing executive Cynthia Young .

Small businesses in the accounting & finance (48%) and manufacturing (45%) sectors are most likely to blame market uncertainty as a barrier to growth. In the agricultural sector, this has traditionally been a more moderate issue but this quarter the sector sees the sharpest rise in concerns over market uncertainty – a relative 48% rise in just six months.

At a time when the CBI has predicted a more positive end of year for business outlook, Hitachi Capital’s Business Barometer asked more than 1,200 small business owners which external factors were holding their business back. It found that 75% of small businesses were being held back by factors that were outside of their control, with market uncertainty affecting three in five. A growing number also cited the falling value of the pound as a big concern in the months ahead, rising from 8% in May to 13% in October.

Key sector findings

Although the finance and accounting sector saw the most significant rise in the number of small businesses feeling that growth plans were being held back by market uncertainty, a growing number of businesses in agriculture and manufacturing admit that market uncertainty is a bigger issue now than six months ago (19% to 31% and 33% to 45% retrospectively).

Market uncertainty Q2 Q4 % rise
National average 31% 39% +26%
Finance and accounting 33% 48% +37%
Agriculture 19% 31% +48%
Manufacturing 33% 45% +31%
Hospitality 31% 38% +20%
Legal 26% 35% +30%
Construction 27% 33% +20%
Media and marketing 39% 44% +12%
IT & telecoms 36% 39% +8%

 

Other key barriers to growth:

 North East small firms at risk

Small firms in North East were more likely to say this month that they were fearful of market uncertainty preventing them from growing – rising from 31% in May to 53% this month. They were also the most likely to admit that volatile cash flow and red tape acted as significant barriers to growth compared to the national average (23% vs. 14% and 21% vs. 16%).

Age and growth

The research from Hitachi Capital also suggests that the young and most established businesses are most worried about protracted market uncertainty. For enterprises that have been trading for 5 to 10 years, concerns have risen from 29% to 42% - and for those who have been trading for 35 years or more market uncertainty fears have rose from 29% in May to 48% in October.

Gavin Wraith-Carter, Managing Director at Hitachi Capital Business Finance said: “With the upcoming General Election, it seems highly unlikely that there will be a clear position on Government policy or Brexit until after the Christmas break. For many small businesses this will mean planning for a New Year with lots of unknowns as market factors. This could play out with us seeing dip in business confidence at the start of 2020 although, longer term, when the sector has greater certainty to plan against we envisage small businesses will be the first to see change as an opportunity to grow and diversify.”

“One of the remarkable findings from our research over the last year is that, overall, there has been little change in the perceived barriers that small businesses feel they have to overcome to grow their business. Despite a period of unprecedented market volatility and political uncertainty, there has been no significant rise in the proportion of businesses citing red tape, cash flow or access to labour as bigger issues than they were a year ago.

Compliance is a must-do activity, not a nice-to-have. According to Colin Bristow, Customer Advisory Manager at SAS, it is essential that companies extract maximum value from compliance processes, reducing the possibility of it being considered a cost centre.

Technological innovation can help to lift some of the compliance burden. The level of technology you can realistically implement depends on how advanced the organisation is to start with. One company’s moonshot could be another’s business as usual. Assessing the starting point is just as important as considering the benefits and end goal.

RegTech, AI and the future of compliance

This is the question that the burgeoning RegTech (regulatory technology) industry is seeking to answer. AI is typically at the forefront. RegTech partly focuses on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of existing processes. As part of that improvement, organizations are using AI, machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA) to smooth the integration and processes between new RegTech solutions, existing legacy compliance solutions and legacy platforms.

Why look to AI for help? Recent regulations, such as GDPR or PSD2, are handed down in the form of large and extremely dense documentation (the UK government’s guidance document for GDPR alone is 201 pages). Identifying the appropriate actions mandated by these lengthy documents requires a great deal of cross-referencing, prior knowledge of historical organisational actions, and knowledge of the relevant organisational systems and processes. What’s more, several regulations attract fines or corrective actions if not applied properly (like the infamous "4% of company turnover" penalty attached to GDPR).

In short, the practical application of regulations currently relies on human interpretation and subsequent deployment of a solution, with heavy penalties for noncompliance. This is where AI can help, reducing the workload involved and improving accuracy. Here are three key examples of how AI can help companies turn compliance into a value-added activity.

1) Reducing the risk of nonconformity

Following the deployment of compliance processes, there is often residual risk. This can be as a result of unforseen gaps in compliance processes, or unexpected occurrences that become apparent when operating at scale.

That’s partly because there are usually a lot of steps and processes to be carried out during the data collation stage of compliance programmes. RPA can help reduce administrative load associated with these processes that include a high degree of repetition – for example, copying data from one system to another. AI can then help process cross-organisational documentation, combining internal and external sources and appropriately matching where necessary.

AI can also help to reduce companies’ risk of noncompliance with, for example, privacy regulations. Furthermore, using AI techniques, organisations can automate transforming and enhancing data. Intelligent automation allows companies to carry out processes with a higher degree of accuracy.

2) Improving process efficiency

Inefficient processes can also hinder compliance. For example, automated systems that detect suspicious transactions for anti-money laundering (AML) processes are sometimes not always as accurate as they could be. A recent report highlighted that 95% of flagged transactions are closed in the first stage of review. Effectively, investigators spend most of their day looking at poor quality cases.

Use of an AI hybrid approach to detection ensures there are fewer, higher quality alerts produced. Furthermore, it is possible to risk-rank cases which are flagged for investigation, speeding up the interaction and relegating lower-risk transactions. Although AI forms an underlying principle across most modern detection systems, maintenance is key to managing effective performance.

AI can also be used to bolster AML and fraud measures more widely. For example, applying AI to techniques such as text mining, anomaly detection and advanced analytics can improve trade finance monitoring. This, in turn, can improve the regularity for document review and consignment checking, improving the validation rates of materials as they cross borders.

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3) Keeping up with regulatory changes

Compliance never stands still. Businesses have to contend with a constantly evolving landscape, potentially across several regions. AI can help to optimise the processing of these regulations and the actions they require, helping companies keep up to date. Companies that need to effectively comply with several differing regulations require a wide range of understanding across all parts of the business. The size, complexity and legacy systems of the business can be significant obstacles.

To mitigate this risk, companies can use natural language processing (NLP) to automate aspects of regulatory review, identifying appropriate changes contained in the regulation and then relaying potential impacts to the appropriate departments. For example, AI could help geographically diverse companies determine whether changes in the UK have an impact on their Singapore office.

Humans still needed

It’s important to note at this point that AI and RegTech are not expected to widely replace humans. We are seeing early AI entries in the RegTech space, but they’re primarily helping with lower-hanging fruit and repetitive tasks. AI is primarily enhancing the work humans do, making them more effective in their roles.

AI does not come without some considerations, however. There is a great deal of focus and scrutiny on associated possible bias in AI deployments. Other discussions are exploring the transparency and governance of applications and questions around who owns generated IP. As a result, it’s essential that AI works closely with humans, enhancing activities and balancing an appropriate level of manual oversight.

AI is augmenting compliance practices by providing faster document review, deeper fraud prevention measures and greater contextual insight. It is also reducing noise in high-transaction environments and lightening the documentary burden on staff. From the start of the regulatory review to the end of the compliance process, AI holds part of the overall solution to a more efficient and valuable compliance function.

Negative interest rates and a slowing economy are forcing lenders, in this case banks, to reduce costs. In a new four-year strategic plan UniCredit has announced it will be cutting back 8,000 more bank jobs as chief executive officer Jean Pierre Mustier rewards investors with EUR 2 billion (£1.7 billion) worth of share buybacks.

UniCredit plans on boosting shareholder remuneration via dividends and share repurchases. The job cuts, which make up around 7% of the bank’s entire workforce, will happen through the closure of around 500 branches worldwide.

In a statement, Mustier said the plan's targets are "pragmatic and achievable… They are based on a realistic set of macroeconomic assumptions, being more conservative than those assumed by the market."

According to Bloomberg’s recent report, these job cuts push the overall banking job losses worldwide, this year, past 73,400, most of which have happened/will happen in Europe (86%).

According to recent figures from the British Retail Consortium, cash has gone from the most common way to pay for shopping in the UK to third ­– in only a few shorts years. It now accounts for just £1 of every £5 spent in shops, with contactless, phone and watch payments all increasingly growing in popularity.

You may therefore find yourself asking: why do we still need cash if we don’t use it anymore? Shouldn’t we be adopting these new and improved methods of paying for goods instead?

Well, no not quite yet – cash still has a major role to play in our society. Listed below are five key reasons why.

  1. Not everywhere accepts cards

Nothing beats a greasy kebab from a food truck after a night on the town, or a cheeky purchase from a handicraft stall while out shopping. However, these sorts of places often require you to pay with cash, mainly because the vendors can’t afford to offer card payment alternatives.

Just because you have a fancy phone or watch that can pay for things with a simple tap, that doesn’t necessarily mean everywhere else is up to your level of digital savviness. Roadside stands, super hole-in-the-wall restaurants and food vans often only ever take cash so, unless you want to trade your fancy phone for a burger, you’re going to need some cash.

  1. It’s great in an emergency

Let’s set the scene: you’re on a night out enjoying yourself when you realise you’ve run out of drink. You head to the bar, order another one, and get your wallet out ready to pay. Suddenly, you realise that your card is missing – you must have lost it dancing earlier on.

In these types of situations, having cash available can make a huge difference. Not only can it allow you to buy that drink you were after, but it also enables you to carry on enjoying your night, and get home safely in a taxi when you’re ready to head back home.

  1. It makes tipping easier

When you visit a restaurant, it’s usually courteous to leave a tip. While some restaurants include this on the bill beforehand, or make a point to ask for it on the card reader itself, many people prefer leaving a handful of cash behind instead – depending on the quality of service provided.

Similarly, if you use a card to pay for purchases at a smaller restaurant, service provider or store, they won’t actually receive the full amount of money you pay. This is because using a card machine actually costs the company money themselves; somewhere between 0.6 – 3.5% of the purchase price, plus an additional fee on top.

  1. Cash prevents overspending

If you are looking to stay in control of your finances, many studies have shown that people spend a lot more when paying with a credit card, compared to cash. This is because the tangibility of actually having to part with cash makes the ‘pain’ of the payment process feel much more real. By using a credit card, you don’t see the money leave your account, so the whole process of paying feels like it hasn’t even happened.

The pain of paying with a card only sets in once you make the brave decision to actually look at your bank balance.

  1. Cash protects your privacy

Spending money on a credit card creates loads of data. This data, in turn, can be easily accessed by prying eyes, such as the government, hackers, or corporate financial institutions.

Cash, on the other hand, is relatively untraceable, as it leaves no track record of who handled it, when, and at what time. Therefore, if you’d rather keep your data and purchase records to yourself, cash is the only means of doing this.

This doesn’t have to be for any criminal motive either: say you have a joint bank account with your partner and are on the lookout for a birthday present for them, they could easily see what you bought them if you paid for it using the joint credit or debit card. Surprise ruined.

Yet last year, according to industry specialist GBG, over 18,000 fraud attempts were made against each UK retailer on average during the period between Black Friday and the January sales.

Sarah Whipp Head of Go to Market Strategy at Callsign argues that during busy periods such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, businesses are under pressure to balance the fraud with customer experience, but they must be careful not to let the latter slip.

At the same time, banks have to foot the bill when it comes to a majority of this type of fraud, so they have a vested interest to not let their retail customers to get complacent when it comes to security.

Given the incredibly high volume of transactions over the coming weekend, and indeed the whole festive period, often merchants will accept that fraud will be higher than usual. However, they are often willing to take the hit because it will be worth it for the extra business as long as there is no long-lasting reputational damage. Indeed, the financial costs of fraud are now borne by banks as well as merchants and Black Friday fraud is a growing challenge for financial institutions.

This is set to change next year. With Secure Customer Authentication (SCA) coming in for merchants in 2021 they may be well advised to make hay now with a lower security bar. In the future they will need to make sure they have trusted merchant status and that they manage their pricing to take into account of SCA exemptions to have a premium user experience. Next year, merchants need to partner closely with issuers (banks) to manage this situation.

3D Secure could throw another spanner in the works for banks whose customers are online retailers that use it to avoid chargebacks. It can massively complicate treatment strategy as the payments are verified by the likes of Visa, Mastercard Secure Pay and Amex Safekey, therefore the liability is mainly with the card issuers and banks.

To deal with the issue, merchants should use agile IT systems to their advantage. For example, if a retailer’s system has the functionality to modify fraud appetite policy dynamically (including adding in extra fraud checks), then they may want to lower the bar initially to gain the maximum number of sales. Then, if they were to spot a high degree of fraud attempts they could ramp up prevention measures on the fly. Of course, the impact on the customer and the risk of possible reputational damage needs to be kept at front of mind at all times.

Bankruptcy is a legal process that relieves you off your debt for some time, but in the long run, declaring bankruptcy can have a very serious effect on your credit report and remains for almost 7-10 years on your report affecting your ability to get loans in the future. So, I am going to present you with four alternatives that can save you from bankruptcy. Going for one or all of these options is definitely better than going bankrupt.

1. Enter an IVA Program

An IVA is an individual voluntary agreement that is a legal binding contract between you and those you owe money. After you have signed an IVA, you get a period of time, usually 5 years, during which you can pay off the debt you owe. It prevents all the creditors from taking any action against you. The best thing about an IVA is that you get to keep your home and personal items. Over the past few years, IVA’s have become a lot more popular. If you want IVA help and information, head over the link and learn more about it.

2. Sell Some Assets

Paying off debt should be your foremost priority. Sell whatever you have in excess and whatever you can live without. If you notice that you can’t keep up with your payments, immediately take action. Many people think that they can’t live without luxurious things, but in the long run, you will understand that it is only temporary and things will get better.

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3. Talk With Your Credits

Now I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out. Most creditors would rather get some money from you than getting none at all. Bankruptcy affects your creditors as much as it affects you. If you talk with your creditors before filing for bankruptcy and let them know that you are having financial difficulties they might listen. Most creditors have special hardship programs to assists you in your time of need. Ask them if they can lower the amount of monthly payments or lower your interest rate. Believe it or not, you can sweet talk you way out of bankruptcy.

4. Get Help from Friend and Friendly

Borrowing money from friends and family is a very bad idea, and it should be your last resort. Money has the power to create misunderstanding between lifelong friends, so you should be very careful. Calculate how much money you need and how much money can you pay off on your own. Never take more than what you need and pay up as soon as you can. Most importantly, before asking them for money, you should have a clear plan on how you are going to pay them back. Your family and friends will happily help you but don’t take advantage of their kindness and earn their trust for the future by paying them what you owe without them asking for it.

But how do the most skilled sportswomen compare, which are the best-paid sports for women, and how much are they earning each day?

Protectivity has analysed the annual salaries of the richest female sports players in the world and calculated exactly how long it would take them to reach your yearly earnings. With the most successful female sportswoman, Serena Williams earning a whopping £23.7 million each year, this athlete earns an impressive £65,000 every single day.

The top 5 richest sportswomen include:

Rank Sport Name Annual Salary
1st Tennis Serena Williams £23,707,480
2nd Tennis Naomi Osaka £19,729,170
3rd Tennis Angelique Kerber £9,580,420
4th Tennis Simona Halep £8,281,380
5th Tennis Sloane Stephens £7,794,240

Serena Williams crowned the world’s richest sportswoman

Serena Williams, arguably the most famous female sports player of the 21st century, takes the crown as the richest woman in sport with a staggering annual salary of £23.7 million. Known for her world-class abilities as a tennis player, Serena began her career over 20 years ago in 1995. Since then, the American athlete has won an impressive 792 matches at Wimbledon. What makes Williams even more impressive is that she continues to win world titles in her sport, showing off a seriously impressive career, with many athletes reaching their optimum playing skills for just a handful of years.

Serena’s success is reflected in her salary at £23.7 million. Broken down, this figure equates to £2,706 every hour and £45 per minute. The tennis champion is miles above other sportswomen, earning over £3 million more each year than the second highest-earning female sports player, Naomi Osaka, who has a yearly salary of £19 million.

With the average UK salary sitting at £29,009, it would take Serena Williams just 10 hours, 44 minutes and 24 seconds to earn this figure, and for the majority of the richest women in sport, a maximum of two days.

Tennis crowned the best-paid sports profession for women

Amongst the top 10 richest female sports players, all are tennis professionals, which highlights the sport as the best-earning skill to pursue for women. With tennis being one of the most popular sports to play and watch across the globe, it is a great opportunity to encourage women into learning the skill. With the UK seeing over 2 million people playing it on a regular basis, the US holding a staggering 17.9 million participating in the sport, and 2019’s Wimbledon men’s singles final seeing 9.6 million people tune in to watch the match, it is great to see the enthusiasm amongst so many people in keeping fit, healthy and happy playing tennis.

Outside of tennis and in the top 15 richest female sports players, football, badminton and golf appear. Football player Alex Morgan ranks 12th, badminton athlete Pusarla V Sindhu sits at 13th and Ariya Jutanugarn at 15th.

The richest women in sport compared to men

Whilst Serena Williams’ salary is immensely impressive, it is clear that female sports players have a long way to go to reach the earnings of the most successful male athletes. Football star, Lionel Messi is crowned as the richest sports player of all time, earning over £100 million each year, which is over four times the amount of Williams. However it is not just football players that are earning more, but tennis professionals too. Novak Djokovic sits as the highest-paid player in tennis earning $50.6 million.

Sean Walsh, Marketing Manager from Protectivity Insurance comments: “It’s great to see the success of women in sport and shine a light on their achievements, particularly in an industry where male professionals are known for earning significantly higher salaries. The popularity of tennis matches really shows in the top 15 richest women in sport list, with both male and female matches being immensely popular with audiences, and thousands of people each summer tuning in to watch Wimbledon.

“Over the next few years, it would be fantastic to see women in other sports rise into the top 15 list of richest women and break the top ten list of tennis players,”

Challenger banks such as Monzo, Starling and Revolut are built to scale, evolve and improve their offerings easily and quickly, and are doing great extending their customer base. According to Ian Bradbury, CTO for Financial Services at Fujitsu UK & Ireland, they are also now beginning to slowly move towards becoming a full service bank for their customers, as well as branching out their offerings to SMEs.

The way banks make their money is by keeping administration costs low, managing the lending risk and investing wisely to receive good returns. Other income avenues include offering “added-value” services, such as payments, for which they take a handling fee (particularly useful when market returns are under performing, for example in the case of low interest rates).

Four digital-led factors to disrupt banking

Four interrelated digital-led factors are fundamentally transforming traditional financial services: new distribution models; cloud native computing; data enrichment in a hyper-connected world; and exponential increase in the rate of change. These four factors create new ways for banks to operate, to do business and to enhance their offerings for consumers - but they have not fundamentally changed their money-driven banking business model – yet!

Regulators have recognised the value that can be bought by these four factors to banking customers, and have sought ways to encourage the uptake of them – often also encouraging new digital-native entrants into the marketplace. Regulators have also sought to ensure that high-margin services can be “unbundled’, allowing new competition to compete in these areas.

In theory, it should not be difficult for banks to not only survive the arrival of these four digital-led factors – in fact with their financial backing, existing customer base, technology assets and regulatory status they should be able to thrive in this competitive landscape.

This is especially true as other potential non-banking competitors have to overcome complex regulatory challenges – besides not being set up to offer the basic banking business model.

Legacy problems

In reality, traditional banks are struggling to keep up with how the market is moving. The reason for this can be summarised in one word – legacy. Legacy culture, legacy skills, legacy controls, legacy distribution models, legacy systems.

Slowly, this is changing, but until these legacy bottlenecks are removed, banks will struggle to keep up. Those that do not move quickly enough to deal with this challenge are unlikely to survive.

Assuming that traditional banks can overcome these legacy challenges and become the truly agile, low-cost, open-driven, customer-obsessed, data-powered, highly automated businesses promised by the digital-native challenger banks then their traditional banking business model may well also change.

The banks of the future

Banks currently operate a fairly simple two-sided marketplace – they take money from depositors and give it out to borrowers, generating trust in the process. But what they really do is provide a two-sided marketplace for ‘value’ – which is currently focused on money.

Digital transformation potentially allows for other ways to exploit this value-based marketplace, with the data-insights and enrichment coupled with new distribution models creating potentially new services.

Besides this, the notion of value is changing in the digital age, with areas such as data, identity, reputation, authenticity and even perhaps social purpose falling within it. These types of values can potentially be digitally stored, secured, exchanged and exploited in a marketplace - just like money. Maybe for example the banks of the future will become the custodians of your valuable data, both protecting it and helping you generate benefits from it.

Regular people who had the courage to speculate were instantly transformed into millionaires, with access to all the wealth they could ever have dreamed of. These success stories were well documented in the media, and others were kicking themselves that they hadn’t jumped on the bitcoin bandwagon in the early days. But it might not be too late for other investors to make money from the cryptocurrency market. Indeed, with the e-currency now back down to a market value of around $7000, it could be the perfect time to invest.

The time has definitely passed for people to invest a small amount of money in bitcoin and become millionaires a few years later. The digital currency created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto is too well-known and has already broken into various industries as an accepted payment method. However, there is a chance that the value of bitcoin could spike again in the near future, and those who buy when it is at its current value could stand to turn a profit.

One of the best options right now may be to trade your bitcoin for other cryptocurrency assets. Because this is such a big industry today, there are actually apps that can assist you. This means you don’t have to follow the markets yourself. Bitcoin Loophole is a great example of one such service - a bitcoin bot developed by bitcoin investor Steve McKay, which is designed to allow manual and automated trading. It is easy to sign up to and has been lauded for its user-friendly features. For newcomers who don’t know much about bitcoin trading, this could be a good option to get in on the ground level.

How to Bag Bitcoin

Getting hold of bitcoin is quick and easy, and there are various websites that can help you access the cryptocurrency in exchange for your own. All you have to do is go through a few security questions in order to set up an account.

Once you have some bitcoin, you could choose to hold it or play the exchange markets in an attempt to turn a profit. If you want to sit on your investment, it is wise to store it in a hard wallet which can be removed from the computer and put in a safe location. This way, your assets won’t be vulnerable to cybercriminals. With this method, you have to hope that bitcoin will rise considerably in value again so you can cash in at a later date.

With bitcoin having reached highs of $20,000 in the past, there is no reason why it can’t push back to those levels at some point. Indeed, if the cryptocurrency can gain traction and break into the mainstream, the price could rise much further. Now could be the ideal time to invest in bitcoin and to start trading.

BlackLine commissioned independent global research firm Censuswide to survey over 760 institutional investors across the world to establish their attitudes to financial risk, due diligence and reporting. The findings reveal the financial practices that raise red flags for investors, as well as the factors they rely on to make informed investment decisions.

According to the survey, creative accounting, where companies exploit financial loopholes to present figures in a legal though misleadingly favourable light, was identified as a major concern for the global investor community. Not only do the majority of investors believe that these tactics are commonplace at their portfolio companies, but 91% believe that more large companies will resort to these techniques over the next 12 to 18 months.

Worryingly, 83% of investors surveyed also agreed on the likelihood of a global recession in the next 12 to 18 months, meaning businesses will need to work even harder to outstrip the competition. However, companies should think twice before trying to manipulate their figures; a quarter (25%) of investors singled out evidence of creative accounting as the factor that would make them least likely to invest in a company.

“In many ways the international business landscape is more complex, uncertain and challenging than it was a year ago. Companies are therefore under increasing pressure to perform and retain a competitive edge,” said BlackLine CEO Therese Tucker. “However, businesses cannot afford to have the integrity of their financial data questioned at a time when investors are evidently becoming more stringent about unnecessary and unwarranted financial risks.”

In fact, inaccurate reporting and poor financial controls raise alarm bells for a large number of global investors. Less than 1% of those surveyed say they will invest in a company with poor financial controls without taking some form of corrective action first, such as imposing changes on the company or its management team.

A third of investors (33%) say risk of internal financial fraud or financial non-compliance make them less likely to invest. Meanwhile, a quarter (25%) are put off by consistently late filings, with a slightly higher portion less likely to invest in companies that make adjustments post reporting (29%).

These red flags are encouraging investors to take a much closer look at the numbers, highlighting the importance of accurate and transparent financial data. When asked what the most important considerations were when deciding whether to invest, a company’s financial growth forecasts (46%), access to real-time snapshots of company finances (42%) and key metrics within financial reports (46%) came out on top. This suggests that while investors are forward-looking, they also need a clear and realistic view of current financial data in order to make informed decisions.

“It’s likely that investors will increasingly want to look ‘under the hood’ of their portfolio companies, to ensure they are getting a transparent and accurate view of their finances,” continued Tucker. “The ability to access, and more importantly analyze, data in real time will not only be vital for driving business competitiveness, but also for maintaining investor trust.”

The full findings are outlined in ‘The New Age of Increased Investor Due Diligence’.

From the characteristics of MITC fraud arrangements to the tangible damage that such schemes can cause, below Jérôme Bryssinck, Head of Government Solutions at Quantexa, talks Finance Monthly through the options for fighting VAT carousel fraud.

Europol believes that missing trader intra-community (MITC) fraud (usually known as ‘VAT Carousel’ fraud) costs authorities around €60 billion annually. MITC is a highly sophisticated form of fraud which can be carried out due to the way that pan-European legislation means cross-border trade may be carried out VAT free. Due to the complexity of the schemes, MITC is hard to fight, and entire legal businesses frequently become unwitting participants in the carousel. Innovative technologies and new policies must be used to tackle this fraud robustly.

What is MITC fraud?

By its nature, the EU trading bloc enables the converging of regulations and standards and the removal of barriers to international export, in order to make trade within the bloc simpler and less expensive. MITC fraud works by taking advantage of the EU legislation around cross-border transactions- traders receiving services or goods from an entity in the EU do not have to pay VAT, as intra-community transactions are VAT exempt.

To create a ‘carousel’, a criminal will create or buy companies to acquire goods (let’s call them Company A in this example). These companies will next buy goods from a company in the EU (Company B). Company A will then purchase goods from Company B, with no VAT being due. Company A will then peddle these goods to a different company (Company C). This company could be a legitimate one, or a company managed and set up by the criminals. Here, VAT will be added to the sale price. Since the goods have been sold domestically, Company A must legally declare the VAT it has included on the goods, and pay this to HMRC. In the case of MITC fraud, though, Company A will vanish, and the VAT will not be paid. The goods will then be passed through many other companies which function as a buffer so as to complicate any potential investigation. Next, a company (Company D) will send these goods out of the EU and reclaim the VAT that was not in fact ever paid to HMRC. This loss of tax revenue negatively affects the provision of crucial public services for the country including education, policing and healthcare, and also increases the tax obligations of honest taxpayers.

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How MITC fraud is being fought

Because millions of euros worth of goods are traded daily, it is hard to identify illegal activity amongst so much legal activity. Combatting VAT carousels is made more difficult by the way that member states need to coordinate across separate national borders. The data needed to investigate MITC fraud criminals will commonly be stored in different forms and will be owned by disparate regulatory or government bodies across the EU. In many cases, ‘carousels’ will already have dissipated by the time authorities realise criminal activity has occurred, allowing the criminals to remain unidentified and the money to have already been lost. Those seeking to fight MITC fraud are therefore unlikely to be able to act to prevent such crimes from being carried out.

Bettering our defences

Technology must be leveraged more effectively to empower tax departments to proactively tackle MITC fraud. A priority is to speed up the sharing and analysing of data at a European level. Data analytics technology should be used to better comprehension of the broader context of each individual company, so that tax departments build a bigger picture of the trades that are being carried out.

Technology must be leveraged more effectively to empower tax departments to proactively tackle MITC fraud.

Such technology would be able to identify anomalies and red flags, such as if a company with an annual turnover of €200K was able to order €2 million’s worth of goods. Under an improved system of data gathering and sharing, VAT information would be collated and interpreted by machines, and AI would be utilised to create risk models that would help improve the accuracy of identifying anomalous results. This information could be shared with a case handler, who would be able to act more swiftly to investigate criminal activity.

As well as this, each EU Member State needs to improve their operational and analysis capabilities. The pace at which each state reacts to the flagging of anomalous results needs to improve if action will be taken effectively. At present, many member states do not have the technical means required to enable them to bring together external data. Some member states must also grow the amount of information they are gathering from traders. VAT receipts, for example, could be collated in a machine-readable format which would improve data collection.

Next steps

VAT Carousel fraud has so far proved difficult for EU Member States to combat. If we are to prevent criminals benefiting at the expense of the taxpayer, we will need a pan-European, multi-pronged approach. The amount of information gathered and collated about company and trade accounts must increase, and we also need to make use of innovative technologies which will facilitate the garnering of actionable insights from the vast amounts of data collected. Only by enacting such a systematic approach will be truly be able to tackle this crime.

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