The FS Club Podcast

What a difference a year makes! The crypto assets landscape has experienced not only extreme turbulence but sudden crashes. This May, the stable coin Terra USD and its linked token Luna imploded, losing a combined capitalization of $40 billion. Subsequent shock waves rippled through global crypto markets causing bitcoin to fall below $20,000, approximately 70 per cent of its November 2021 peak. Th...

Find a link to the report on our website: https://bit.ly/3EFpD3M This webinar accompanies the launch of a new booklet from the Esop (employee share ownership) Centre - “Why Employee Share Ownership Matters”.  Big concepts can be unfairly pigeonholed in small boxes. The concept of employee share ownership ought to start from a moral perspective, not least sharing risks and benefits with fellow...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3V5lPhL The climate emergency is changing everything and its impacts will only increase in the years to come. Not only are systems becoming outdated, but so are ways of thinking, working and living. Preparing future generations for the transformations to come starts with equipping them with new ways of thinking and learning. Black Mount...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3UZ4CpV In March 2022, the Republic of Chile placed the first-ever Sovereign Sustainability-Linked Bond (SSLB). This $2 billion 20 year SSLB was more than 4 times oversubscribed - a remarkable achievement given the sovereign bond market’s volatility and uncertainty. Green Policy Performance Bonds, Sustainability-Linked bonds (SLBs), and...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3g1nkyo The most interesting cryptocurrencies may be the ones that are only ever expected to be worth $1. Terra UST's failure to clear that low bar was the first domino to fall in the crypto winter of 2022. But stablecoins remain central in crypto's ambitions to become a mainstream alternative to traditional finance. Will there be one s...

In April 2021, the European Commission proposed a draft regulation for Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems used in the EU single market, dubbed the AI Act. This opened one of the most politicized regulatory debates since GDPR, and the AI Act promises to be as wide-ranging. In this conversation, we'll take stock of the current thinking about governing AI in the EU, 1.5 year into the debate.  ...

Find out more abou this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3EaTAZ4 In the face of climate catastrophes and mass extinction of plants and animals, non-human entities previously regarded as 'nature' are being granted the status of legal persons. Such legal personality facilitates and enables bio-geo entities to sue in their own name; and enforce rights and protect their interests. These developmen...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3Ues4zo The tenth edition of the Global Green Finance Index provides the world’s most authoritative measure of the performance of financial centres in delivering green finance services. The report, assembled by combining the views of financial professionals from around the world, with quantitative data commissioned and curated from over...

Find out more on our website: https://bit.ly/3DyD6d3 The paper-based process of international trade and trade finance, along with many other commercial transactions, is staff intensive, cumbersome, susceptible to fraud, and costly. Widespread efforts to convert paper documentation into digital form to address these issues have had to contend with both technological and legal barriers. In an effort...

Globalisation has meant that many businesses now operate on a truly international scale, but how can they keep corporate identity and cohesion in the midst of so great a variety of cultural, financial and legal complexities? In this 45 minute webinar, share schemes expert David Craddock will examine the challenges of international share schemes, including language, legislation, currency and techno...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3eU3Ta9 The Metaverse isn’t just something from a sci-fi novel anymore. If you’ve been struggling to get your head around it, here are two pieces of good news: you’re not alone, and it definitely isn’t too late to learn about it. This webinar will provide insight into what the Metaverse is and isn’t – and the key legal issues you’ll nee...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3ESrkva Stress at work is something everyone talks about - in the press recently was even the idea that Clifford Chance the famous 'magic circle' Law firm was to appoint a well-being officer! But the problem with that idea is most stress at work boils down to dealing with difficult people. The difficult person may be a demanding or bull...

Find out more about this event on out website: https://bit.ly/3CDnKSR As the climate crisis accelerates, new attention is focused on the accuracy of data referenced to establish baseline measurements of critical issues like GHG emissions and land use. Satellite data - often enhanced through artificial intelligence - offer new insight to improve the timeliness and accuracy of sustainability measure...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3erDHnn The United States is now nearly 250 years old. It arose from humble beginnings, as a strip of mostly agrarian and sparsely populated English colonies on the north-eastern edge of the New World, far removed from the centres of power in Europe. Today, it is the world's most powerful country, with its largest economy and most power...

Find our more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3CTg7Jh Today, your personal data is constantly collected and processed, whether you're accessing a service, searching online for information, or purchasing a product. Web browsers, loyalty/credit cards, and mobile applications all record vast amounts of personal data.  AI-powered algorithms transform this data into intelligence ab...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3EzD31x Economic policymakers must rely on theory to guide them. If the theory is bad, policy can be disastrous. This is the situation today. The current consensus model of the economy (“CM”) leads to periodic financial crises. We risk having another soon. We must replace CM with a better model, and I propose we use The Stock Market Mod...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3M8xWXM Scotland has a 350-year history as a leading financial centre; second only to London in the UK, sustaining around 150,000 jobs, and contributing 9.4% of the Scottish economy by Gross Value Added (GVA).  Throughout its long history, it has innovated and reinvented itself continuously. Edinburgh is well known for its expertis...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3SVvNBc A collateral consequence of the invasion of Ukraine has been an undeniable demonstration that the world is not yet in a position to abandon fossil fuels. With one face governments are encouraging the oil industry to produce more oil and gas; with the other face they are banging the drum, albeit with increasingly muffled drumstic...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3C6z1Ll Uncertainty is not really uncertainty at all but just demonstrates a lack of foresight, imagination, and vision; as well as an unwillingness to think about the maverick or unthinkable – good and bad - and be ready for it or take advantage of it. If we are to meet the challenges that an everchanging world is throwing at us, then...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3BYP25L It is currently fashionable to say that politics is now all about culture rather than economics. That transitioning sex matters more than transitioning nature of economies. That whether Brexit matters to you emotionally matters more than what its practical impacts are. And so on. However, this conventional wisdom is wrong. Young...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3BV7s7p Charismatic people create new systems that sometimes work (Big Bang in the City) and other charismatic people can crash the markets and countries large and small. Charisma is exerted through facial expressions, tone of the voice, hand gestures and body movements. This wrapping of non-verbal signals together with pithy language m...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3xNziBw The Global Financial Centres Index has been tracking the development of the world’s financial centres since 2007 and is the authoritative guide to financial centre success.  In this webinar, Z/Yen, in partnership with the China Development Institute, will formally launch the 32nd edition of the index.  We will also loo...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3UsNqK3 Consult Hyperion and Norfico were commissioned by EACHA – The European Automated Clearing House Association to produce this in-depth whitepaper on Central Bank Digital Currencies. The whitepaper is based on research, insights from EACHA’s members and from hands-on experience from ongoing CBDC projects. We’re delighted to have th...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3QLVhPO “Those able to make the most progress fastest stand to capture the highest value from data-supported capabilities. Companies already seeing 20 percent of their earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) contributed by artificial intelligence (AI)” McKinsey & Company.  Without question, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is cha...

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3RWLese Climate change is driving increasing wildfires including megafires worldwide, and the business community has begun to reckon with the impacts. The reinsurance industry has reclassified fires as a primary rather than a secondary peril. AXA XL has a special division focused on science and natural perils including fire, but they ac...