BANK OF ENGLAND SURVEY: British politicians pose the biggest risk to the UK financial system

• Camilla Hodgson
 

• 7h
• 289

WPA Pool / Getty

• The biggest source of risk to the UK financial system is the UK's political sector, according to the Bank of England's latest risk survey.
• Almost all respondents cited political risk as a threat, with 67% citing this factor as the biggest perceived threat to the system.
• Geopolitics and cyber attack were the second and third most commonly cited risks. 

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 LONDON — The biggest source of risk to the UK financial system is the UK's political sector, according to the latest Bank of England Systematic Risk Survey published Tuesday.

The risk to the financial system most cited by respondents in the 2017 H2 survey was "UK political risk," mentioned by 91% of respondents and up 9 percentage points since 2017 H1.

Political risk was also overwhelmingly cited as the number one source of risk, by 67% of the 96 respondents, compared to geopolitics (7%), cyber attack (7%) and the risk of a UK economic downturn (3%).

Here's the chart:

Bank of England

The biannual survey asks market participants about perceived risks to, and their confidence in, the stability of the UK's financial system. Respondents tend to be executives responsible for firms' risk management or treasury functions.

Around 90% of those respondents that cited political risk explicitly referred to the implications of the Brexit vote. However, cyber attack was the risk most cited by UK building societies and large UK banks, while political risk was most cited by other sectors.

A spike in the perception of the threat posed by UK politics was recorded in the first survey of 2016, carried out just before the Brexit vote.

At that time, the proportion of respondents that cited this threat jumped from 26% to 72%, and almost all respondents that mentioned this risk referenced the possibility of the UK leaving the European Union.

The second and third most commonly cited threats to the UK financial system in 2017 H2 were geopolitical risk (61%, unchanged from 2017 H1) and cyber attack (57%, up six percentage points). The proportion of respondents fearing cyber attacks is now at its highest level since the survey began in 2008, while the proportion of respondents citing "sovereign risk" has dropped to 14%, from 76% in 2011 H1.

Compared to 2017 H1, a slightly larger proportion of respondents cited the risk of a UK economic downturn (34%, up six percentage points).

Bank of England

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Dash, the fifth largest cryptocurrency, hits a new all-time high as rumours swirl on Reddit

• Oscar Williams-Grut
 

• 6h
• 2,082

The Dash logo. Dash

• Dash climbs 20% against the dollar to hit a high of $575.83.
• Rumours circulating that the cryptocurrency will soon be highlighted in a popular cryptocurrency investment newsletter.

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LONDON — The price of Dash, the fifth largest cryptocurrency, is surging on Wednesday, hitting a new all-time high.

Dash hit a high of $575.83 early on Wednesday morning after surging 20% against the dollar in 24 hours. The cryptocurrency is up 15% against the dollar to $562.52 at 10.35 a.m. GMT (5.35 a.m. ET):Markets Insider

The exact cause of the surge is unclear. Wider cryptocurrency markets remain subdued.

Mati Greenspan, an analyst with trading platform eToro, said the surge could be linked to a deal in Zimbabwe, where long-time ruler Robert Mugabe was yesterday forced to resign.

The Dash Foundation, which aims to promote the cryptocurrency, struck a deal in the African country with Kuvacash, a mobile wallet project that aims to help Zimbabwe combat runaway inflation by storing value in cryptocurrency.

"One thing that could be giving rise to this specific coin on this specific day is a $550,000 partnership that was announced between the Dash Foundation and Kuvacash," Greenspan said in an email. "The new project aims to bring some level of financial stability to the country of Zimbabwe through a peer to peer payment system that will be accessible to anybody with a mobile phone."

Meanwhile, traders on messaging app Telegram chat groups are pointing to rumours circulating on Reddit and chatrooms such as 4Chan. Posts on both suggest that Dash could soon be highlighted as an investment opportunity in Palm Beach Confidential, a cryptocurrency investment newsletter.

Dash, a portmanteau of Digital Cash, was created by a decentralized online group in 2014. It is very similar to bitcoin but offers additional features such as instant payments.

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Uber reportedly paid hackers $100,000 to cover up a cyberattack that exposed the personal data of 57 million people

• Becky Peterson
 

• 19h
• 10,245

Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Steve Jennings/Getty Images

Uber paid hackers $100,000 to cover up a 2016 cyberattack that exposed the personal data of 57 million people, including both riders and drivers, Bloomberg's Eric Newcomer reported Tuesday.

The data breach, which occurred in October 2016, was not made public until Tuesday when Uber quietly published a blog post about the incident. But Uber's former CEO Travis Kalanick was made aware of the breach just a month after it occurred.

"None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it," Dara Khosrowshahi, who joined Uber as CEO in September, wrote in the post. "We are changing the way we do business, putting integrity at the core of every decision we make and working hard to earn the trust of our customers."

Among the info stolen was trove of data including the names, emails, and phone numbers for 50 million riders globally, as well as the personal information of 7 million drivers. This included US driver's license numbers, but no Social Security numbers, according to Uber.

Two of the people responsible for Uber's handling of the breach are no longer with the company as a result of the findings, Khosrowshahi wrote in the post.

One of them is Joe Sullivan, Uber's chief security officer, who was asked by Khosrowshahi to resign, according to Bloomberg. Sullivan had previously worked at Facebook.

One of Sullivan's direct reports, a lawyer named Craig Clark, was fired, according to the report.

In the hours since Bloomberg first published its report, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened up an investigation into how Uber handled the hack, Tech Crunch reports. 

This news comes at the end of a rocky year for the company that included several high-level deparatures following reports that the company culture was toxic and allegations of sexism. Kalanick, who cofounded the company in 2009, resigned as CEO in June, though the strife continued as Uber's board of directors battled over who would come in to replace him.

Read Bloomberg's full report on the 2016 Uber hack here.

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Trump says the AT&T-Time Warner deal is 'not good for the country'

• Joe Ciolli
 

• 20h
• 3,069
 

Reuters / Carlo Allegri

T AT&T

 34.86 0.53 (+1.50 %)

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TWX Time Warner

 90.15 0.60 (+0.70 %)

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• President Donald Trump told White House reporters on Tuesday that AT&T's proposed acquisition of Time Warner is "not good for the country."
• The comments echo those made by Trump on the campaign trail in October 2016.
• Trump has been a staunch opponent of the deal for over a year, and has repeatedly voiced his displeasure with CNN, which is owned by Time Warner.

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The hits keep coming for AT&T's proposed acquisition of Time Warner.

President Donald Trump spoke to reporters on the White House lawn on Tuesday afternoon, saying, "Personally, I always felt that was a deal that's not good for the country. He also said, "I'm not going to get involved — it's litigation."

His comments come one day after the US Department of Justice sued to block AT&T's $84.5 billion takeover of Time Warner.

The statements echo comments Trump made on the campaign trail back in October 2016, when he said a successful deal would result in "too much concentration of power in the hands of too few," and also said "deals like this destroy democracy."

Trump's Justice Department — most notably Makan Delrahim, the antitrust chief he nominated — would seem to agree. In a complaint filed on Monday, the regulatory body focused on what it sees as potentially anti-competitive behavior that could result from a completed deal. AT&T already owns DirecTV, which is mentioned throughout the complaint as a particular cause for concern.

The news of the antitrust lawsuit followed recent reports that the Justice Department demanded AT&T and Time Warner sell Turner Broadcasting, the group of channels that includes CNN, to receive approval for the deal. The entire ordeal comes amid Trump's repeated insistence that CNN is "fake news."

Regulatory concerns about the merger have ramped up since Delrahim started in his new role. After assuming duties in September, he pushed for the divestiture of either Turner Broadcasting or DirecTV during negotiations, according to a Bloomberg report.

Trump's concerns echo those expressed by many critics of the deal who think that too much consolidation in the media and telecom industries is ultimately bad for both. Still, antitrust experts have said that on a strictly legal basis, fighting the deal might be difficult for the DOJ.

Whether the deal can proceed will be up to a federal judge. It's also possible the two sides will negotiate a settlement that would allow it to continue.

AT&T's stock slid 0.9% for Tuesday's session, while Time Warner shares were little changed.

Markets Insider

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