America’s commercial property collapse is becoming a danger to the financial system.

Office blocks purchased with debt remain half empty, 18 months after the end of the pandemic. Thousands of buildings will have to be torn down. Hundreds of regional banks are sitting on crippling losses that they yet to acknowledge.

“It’s a trainwreck in slow motion,” said Professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a property and finance expert at Columbia University.

“The return to the office isn’t happening. Data from turnstile swipes shows that occupancy levels are still just 49pc of where they used to be. It has been stable for a year and a half,” he said. Sensors tracking physical presence in offices tell the same story. Hybrid work is here to stay.

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DT (£) A rising wave of property defaults threatens US banks. “We are starting to see distressed sales every day. Offices are selling for 50pc, 60pc or 70pc discounts. At these values the equity holders are wiped out, and lenders take a 30pc loss,” https://t.co/3JGKK29ku4

— Peter Bill (@peterproperty) October 27, 2023

We all receive scam messages — and I cannot be alone in noticing that they are becoming more frequent. Last month, several UK banks gave warnings about a sharp increase in online fraud.

It disturbs me that anyone will go to such lengths to steal my money; but what has chilled me to the core is learning that the person on the other end of a scam call or message could be a victim of human trafficking — forced into involvement in fraud by the threats of beatings and electrocution.

My colleagues at International Justice Mission (IJM) in Cambodia were some of the first people to respond to this sinister new form of modern slavery, forced scamming. Human traffickers are luring people with false job offers online, paying their transport costs, and then trapping them in heavily guarded compounds in places such as Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos.

Under the threat of extreme violence, the victims must scam people all around the world. Survivors whom we have helped have shown us bruises the size of watermelons caused by being beaten, and burns from electrocution — the result of not hitting their scamming targets.

Disturbingly, forced scamming is one of the most complex and fast-growing forms of modern slavery in the world.

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"It disturbs me that people go to such lengths to steal my money, " @IJMUK CEO @DavidWestlake, writes in the @ChurchTimes, "but what has chilled me to the core is learning that the person on the other end of a #scam could be a victim of #humantrafficking."https://t.co/bq0hY5SsDj

— International Justice Mission (IJM UK) (@IJMUK) June 30, 2023

‘So what has been uncovered in the week since we learned that Silicon Valley Bank was no more trustworthy than a crypto spam text? A startup culture once considered the gem of the economy has been exposed as careless with its money, clueless in its judgment of character, hypocritical in its ideology, and ruthless in exercising its political clout as a powerful special interest. Meanwhile, the financial world is still jittery, with other banks failing and just about everyone wondering what comes next. And from here on, the concept of a cap on FDIC insurance is at risk. But at least the SBV credit cards are working again. And VCs can take a victory lap as they brag about how they saved the day….’

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Although ultimately no depositor lost money in the Silicon Valley Bank saga, what happened to the bankers, founders, and avowed libertarians in the crisis can't be unseen. https://t.co/ud1PE7PlG6

— WIRED (@WIRED) March 17, 2023

The Federal Reserve is facing criticism over Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, with lawmakers and financial regulation experts asking why the regulator failed to catch and stop seemingly obvious risks. That concern is galvanizing a review of how the central bank oversees financial institutions — one that could end in stricter rules for a range of banks.

In particular, the episode could result in meaningful regulatory and supervisory changes for institutions — like Silicon Valley Bank — that are large but not large enough to be considered globally systemic and thus subject to tougher oversight and rules. Smaller banks face lighter regulations than the largest ones, which go through regular and extensive tests of their financial health and have to more closely police how much easy-to-tap cash they have to serve as a buffer in times of crisis.

Regulators and lawmakers are focused both on whether a deregulatory push in 2018, during the Trump administration, went too far, and on whether existing rules are sufficient in a changing world.

While it is too early to predict the outcome, the shock waves that Silicon Valley Bank’s demise sent through the financial system, and the sweeping response the government staged to prevent it from inciting a nationwide bank run, are clearly intensifying the pressure for stronger oversight.

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What happened at Silicon Valley Bank? The failure has accusing fingers pointed at the Fed. And at the central bank, it's kicked off a bout of regulatory soul-searching.

with @FlitterOnFraud https://t.co/qptaFO0iSO

— Jeanna Smialek (@jeannasmialek) March 15, 2023

Another question is what will happen to the venture debt market. svb was a major player, with $6.7bn of such loans outstanding when it went under. Startups used this low-cost lending to top up balance-sheets between equity funding rounds. Most now expect such loans to become more expensive, especially for the youngest firms. Venture-capital outfits are unlikely to lower themselves en masse to the comparatively small returns offered by this sort of lending. Other wheels on the venture-capital machine will need oiling, too. For example, svb often provided bridge financing to venture-capital firms, allowing them to strike deals while awaiting cash from investors.

All this means that the loss of svb is likely to have a chilling effect on an industry already suffering from higher interest rates. Bankers may have to wait some time to see venture capital’s dry powder hit their deposit accounts—after all, in the last quarter, the amount of money flowing into startups globally fell by two-thirds. Limits on financing and difficulties banking baby firms will make the industry’s adjustment to higher rates more painful still. After such an adjustment, trips to the bank will remind dealmakers of their own mortality. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

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Startups used low-cost lending to top up balance-sheets between equity funding rounds. Most now expect such loans to become more expensive https://t.co/9Ty10mOPhT

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 14, 2023

What are the virtues that will bring the City to a golden age, not just successful by material standards, but good human beings; saving a legacy of global flourishing? What are they with next year the 10th Anniversary of the publication of the Parliamentary Banking Standards Commission report, which focused on virtue?

Ethics and virtues aren’t inscribed on paper or tablets.

They can only be written on the human heart.

As a banker at the Commission in 2012 said when shown a dense two-page ethical code designed for use in a large dealing room – ‘it would make a rather good paper aeroplane’.

The greatest failures in our society come from the absence of the virtues of self-awareness; that we do believe in our own sinless perfection, and we don’t believe in sin.

If we can’t acknowledge our shortcomings, our sins, we don’t learn from our failures. And if we don’t think we need forgiveness, we don’t give it to others. Forgiveness oils the wheels of society, of politics, of the markets. It makes civilisation possible. After war it may take generations, reasonably and understandably, but without it the international future is of armies fighting by night on a darkling plain.

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Archbishop of Canterbury says Russian invasion of Ukraine must not succeed https://t.co/MXIh0gRb1d

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) December 2, 2022

The world can kiss goodbye to an economic soft landing. Western central banks are on a misguided mission to restore their damaged credibility, tightening monetary policy violently after the post-pandemic recovery has already wilted and output is nearing contractionary levels.

Britain’s fiscal blitz has the luck of timing. It is a counter-cyclical stimulus, cushioning some of the blow, even if it risks rattling bond vigilantes, and even if it is wasteful in subsidies for the affluent.

Critics say the energy bailout will cap inflation in the short run but stoke more inflation in the long run, to which one can only reply, like Keynes, that in the long run we are all dead. World events are going to wash over such quibbling with a torrential deflationary force.

The central banks are pushing through with triple-barrelled rate rises after the inflation fever has broken; after the commodity boom has deflated; and after key monetary indicators on both sides of the Atlantic have turned negative. They are prisoners of lagging indicators.

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✍️"Inflation will abate gradually of its own accord across the Atlantic world, without the need for a punishment beating by central banks with bad models. Boom-bust monetary policy is frankly a scandal," writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard https://t.co/InfJuu0hpD

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) September 23, 2022

China has gone furthest. In 2015 it launched cips, an interbank messaging system to ease international payments in yuan. It uses the same language as swift, allowing it to talk to other countries’ payment systems. For now just 950 institutions use it—less than 10% of swift’s membership. But “what matters is it’s there,” says Eswar Prasad of Cornell University.

The real revolution is happening in low-value transfers. Like swift, the network of American card schemes is tricky to displace. Member banks and merchants trust each other because they adhere to tested rules. They also like the convenience of the schemes’ settlement platforms, which compute “net” positions between all banks that they square up at the end of the day. So rival schemes struggle to make a dent. In 2014, fearing sanctions could block it from using American schemes, Russia created its own, which now accounts for 17% of domestic cards. But its 70m tally is dwarfed by Visa and Mastercard’s 5bn. Size is not a problem for UnionPay, China’s own club. Just 130m of its 7.6bn cards were issued outside the mainland, however, where it is mostly used by Chinese tourists.

A mightier threat comes from a state-led revamp of domestic payment systems. Eager to reassert control over key infrastructure, some 70 countries have rebuilt their local plumbing to enable near-instant bank transfers at the tap of a screen. Europe is the most advanced, having fused local networks into a bloc of 35 countries and more than 500m people. South-East Asia is also trying to stitch its systems together. On March 5th India and Singapore connected theirs for the first time.

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Last year Chinese customers paid $49trn in purchases via mobile, 35 times the total in 2013 https://t.co/RGtbz28DiP

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 7, 2020

Scotland’s role as a global leader in ethical finance is being highlighted at a world summit in Edinburgh.

Senior representatives from more than 200 companies and organisations are attending Ethical Finance 2019.

Speakers include Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The summit aims to “help define and shape the transition to a sustainable financial system where finance delivers positive change”.

The event is being hosted by the Scotland-based Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI).

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Edinburgh hosts world summit on ethical finance https://t.co/cEcnvYDH98 pic.twitter.com/XLPDYv7hsI

— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) October 8, 2019

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In 2013 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, declared war on Wonga and other payday lenders crucifying borrowers with 5,000% interest loans. Three years later it looks as if his prayers may have been answered.

CFO Lending, which was fined £34m this week by the Financial Conduct Authority, is just the latest operator brought to its knees by regulators punishing bad lending behaviour. CFO, which traded under brand names Payday First, Money Resolve and Flexible First, will have to hand money back to nearly 100,000 victims of its unfair practices.

Citizens Advice said complaints about payday loans have collapsed by 86% between 2013 and 2016. But campaigners warn that the industry is reinventing itself with still “eye-watering” interest rates on three-month loans aimed at people earning less than £20,000 a year on insecure work contracts.

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All eyes have turned to Britain’s vote to leave the European Union as having the most drastic political and economic impact onto the 28-nation state but if you look at the country’s economic data, bank issues, and the impending constitutional referendum coming up, Italy is like a bomb waiting to explode.

The Italian financial system, which to put it gently, is in a major state of flux right now. While Britain’s EU referendum in June was seismic in terms of having economic and political repercussions across the bloc, there is another referendum of equal importance, coming up in Italy in October, and the result could fundamentally alter the state of the already delicate Italian economy.

Italians will have a say on reforms to its Senate, the upper house of parliament, in October. The proposed reforms are widespread, and if approved could improve the stability of Italy’s political set up and allow Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to push through laws aimed at improving the country’s economic competitiveness.

Read it all and make sure to take a careful look at the productivity graph.

What we have learnt from the market moves since Brexit is that Europe is just as vulnerable as Britain. The vote has already triggered a banking crisis in Italy, where the government is struggling to put together a €40bn (£33bn) rescue but is paralysed by the constraints of euro membership.

The eurozone authorities never sorted out the structural failings of EMU. There is still no fiscal union or banking union worth the name. The North-South chasm remains, worsened by a deflationary bias. The pathologies fester.

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Jason Carrier, a pastor at Southgate Baptist Church, which, like Mr. Drewery’s church, is in Springfield, Ohio, is trying to help his church start a “grace-based lending” program that worshipers can use in place of payday lending. The program would direct any fees charged above the principal into savings accounts for the borrower, not into lenders’ pockets.

“In conjunction with a credit union, the money ”” for lack of a better word, we’ll call it interest ”” goes into a savings account, so they are learning to save money,” Mr. Carrier said. “To use the service, you have to take some classes, and you have a financial coach that will help you and walk with you along the way.”

Mr. Carrier’s church has already tested its program with several needy members. Ultimately, he said, he would like to directly challenge the payday lenders. “We’d like to have a storefront, just like your Check ’n Gos, but with space in the back for classes and financial coaching.”

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The Just Finance Network, formerly known as the Church Credit Champions Network (CCCN), has proposed a nationwide roll out of ”˜credit champions’ to help people manage money and debt.

The scheme has already been piloted in churches in London, Southwark and Liverpool and has trained more than 260 volunteers. Organisers believe it is now ready to go nationwide.

Of the Church Credit Champions Network, the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev Paul Bayes, said that desperate people had been exploited by unscrupulous credit providers locking them into a crippling spiral of debt.

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”˜To Your Credit’, the local churches’ grassroots movement and the Archbishop’s initiative to create a fairer financial system, has released the first of a series of four 10-minute films on ”˜Money, Debt and Salvation.’ Six theologians will offer reflections on money and debt.

The Archbishop features in the first of the series, in a call to ”˜challenge the sovereignty of money’.

“Credit and debt is one of the key issues that people face because it’s pervasive, it’s everywhere”¦ The reason it’s so important is because the knock-on effect of credit and debt going wrong is so destructive. People’s lives are torn apart, their families are damaged.

“It’s a prophetic thing to get stuck into these issues because we have to challenge the sovereignty of money and finance over every aspect of our life. And to say in quite a revolutionary way, no you’re not in charge, human beings are the ultimate value.

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Justin Welby captured the attention of the nation in 2013 when he declared war on Wonga and pledged the support of the church in the fight for financial inclusion. And yet, alongside the positive headlines, a common question emerged in response: what does the church really have to offer to people struggling on low incomes and preyed on by exploitative lenders, except perhaps a some spiritual support and comfort?

The answer has come in the form of the Church Credit Champions Network, a project funded by Lloyds Banking Group that has been piloting in London and Liverpool since the spring of 2014. It helps equip local churches to engage with money and debt issues, and has formed a key part of the task group set up by the archbishop of Canterbury and chaired by former City regulator Sir Hector Sants.

The church has both an unmatched “branch network”, with a presence in every community in the country, and a range of different resources, such as people, money, skills and buildings, which are all potentially of value to credit unions and others seeking to increase access to savings and affordable credit in their communities. The network helps churches to listen and reflect on what is happening within their local community in terms of money and debt, and then trains up clergy and church members as ”credit champions”, ready to take practical action.

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The Worship Center Christian Church in Birmingham announced during services on Sunday morning that it will pay off the payday loans of 48 people struggling with debt.

Those whose loans are being paid off owe a combined total of more than $41,000 and are paying high interest rates of 36 percent and much higher. Payday loans are unsecured cash advances that people use to make it through to the next payday. Payday loan centers proliferate throughout Alabama.

“It’s kind of a ticking time bomb with high interest rates,” Senior Pastor Van Moody said in an interview after the service. “That’s why many people never get out.”

Those having their loans paid off will be required to undergo financial counseling and attend financial workshops so they don’t get in the same fix again, Moody said.

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Sir Jeremy Morse was one of the most intellectually gifted London bankers of the postwar era. He led Lloyds Bank through the challenges of Big Bang, the reorganisation of stock exchange practices and the third world debt crisis, and saw it emerge as one of the strongest of Britain’s retail banking groups.

With the air of a don rather than a City banker, he was skilled at crosswords and brain-teaser puzzles and was even acknowledged as the inspiration for Inspector Morse. The detective’s creator, Colin Dexter, named the character after him because he said that he had never encountered a finer problem-solving mind.

Knowing he had inspired Inspector Morse gave him great pleasure. He was introduced to Dexter in the 1950s at dinners hosted by The Observer for those who had solved their Ximenes crossword. Unlike his fictional alter-ego, Morse said, “I am distressingly unmelancholy.” He drank wine, albeit in moderation, and listened to Bach rather than wallowing in Wagner.

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Would people join? When the idea of a Church Credit Union was first mooted (some eight years ago), the feedback was positive, but would that general level of interest translate into real live members? The answer to that one is ”˜yes it has’. It was with great excitement we watched our first applications come through. We operate an online system that sends us an email every time someone joins and it was marvellous to open the mailbox and see twenty new applicants just on the first day and it is rare a day goes by without at least one new member. And yes, we do have a lot of members who are ordained ministers but we also have PCC members, and Elders, and Office staff and a membership that is as diverse as our churches.

The second question was ”˜will people save?’ On the 11th February 2015 the credit union had an empty balance sheet but since then 200 people have become Founder Members of the credit union, investing an amazing £910,000 to add to the £386,000 in deferred shares invested by our denominational partners big and small. We also gained 350 regular savers depositing an average of £40 a month into their accounts.

The next step was would people borrow? Not guaranteed in our perceived debt adverse client base. Again since May, credit union loans have purchased 83 cars, two caravans and a motorbike, we have improved seven homes and furnished two others and helped to pay for one wedding. We’ve also walked alongside 11 households in helping to turn unmanageable debt into affordable credit.

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[The data in the economic background paints]…a very murky picture. This is the first time the Fed has ever embarked on tightening cycle when the ISM gauge of manufacturing is below the boom-bust line of 50. Nominal GDP growth in the US has been trending down from 5pc in mid-2014 to barely 3pc.

Danny Blanchflower, a Dartmouth professor and a former UK rate-setter, said the US labour market is not as tight as it looks. Inflation is nowhere near its 2pc target and the world economy is still gasping for air. He sees a 50/50 chance that the Fed will have to pirouette and go back to the drawing board.

“All it will take is one shock,” said Lars Christensen, from Markets and Money Advisory. “It is really weird that they are raising rates at all. Capacity utilization in industry has been falling for five months.”

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The court found that the Bank had a contract with the Diocese, as represented by the Bishop in Council and that there was a real guarantee made to honour the loan. Further, the court found that the BiC has an obligation to promote the necessary ordinances to levy the funds required (i.e. general diocesan assets including, if necessary, church buildings and properties should be sold to make good the debt).

This obviously puts the diocese in a dire position. It is widely acknowledged that it will be unable to meet these debts and continue to function in any general sense as it currently does. So where to from here?

It’s less than 24 hours since the judgement was passed down but I’ve been able to canvas a range of responses from senior and informed figures in the Anglican Church of Australia.

Amongst many there is a genuine sorrow for the diocese which is now facing a major crisis, and also for Bishop Ian Palmer who is not in perfect health. But options are limited. This will now be a test of the national church’s understanding of its own mutuality. To what extent should other dioceses get involved to help out? What role should the Primate or the General Synod take? When the crisis first developed a financial advisory group went to meet with then Bishop Hurford. They were, it’s fair to say, sent packing. More recently at a General Synod Standing Committee meeting one member urged the Standing Committee to “either send a condolence card or stand shoulder to shoulder”. But which will it be?

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Wall Street’s biggest banks are beginning to build their defences against downturns, signalling an end to the steady thinning of reserves that has helped boost profits in the past five years.

Tapping into reserves set aside for bad loans has become a reliable source of income for the banks in the post-crisis environment, allowing them to offset the effects of weak demand and ultra-low interest rates. Regulators let lenders dip into reserves in this way if they can argue that an improving outlook makes losses less likely.

But the practice is expected to have a limited impact on the banks’ third-quarter profits, which begin to be presented this week, because reserves have been run down about as far as they can go.

While some banks with plump cushions of reserves could still make net reductions, others are at an “inflection point,” said Jennifer Thompson, an analyst at Portales Partners in New York. Lenders with big exposures to energy could see “dramatic” increases in reserves, she said, while related sectors such as materials, commodities and industrials also look vulnerable to rises.

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Those of you who are shortly going to be commissioned as Church Credit Champions have heard God’s call, as the whole church has in recent years, to be a church of the poor for the poor; to seek justice and the common good for all in our society.

You have set up credit union access points in your churches, brought new people onto the boards of local credit unions, supported people struggling with debt through signposting them to debt advice resources.

You have seen the need, and you have met it with love, grace and hope.

We all know that the Christian relationship with money is, at best, slightly ambivalent. We recognise when it’s got the wrong place, but we find it quite hard to find the right place.

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The church has heard a fresh call to be “a church of the poor for the poor” in recent years, the Archbishop of Canterbury said last night as he commissioned volunteers to help churches engage with issues of credit and debt in their communities.

Speaking during a special service at St George-in-the-East in Shadwell, London, the Archbishop told more than 50 volunteers ”“ who have taken part in a pilot scheme in London, Southwark and Liverpool dioceses ”“ that they had “seen the need, and met it with love, grace and hope.”

The first phase of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Church Credit Champions Network is on course to secure benefits worth over £2million for local communities.

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Private equity and hedge fund firms have bought more than 100,000 troubled mortgages at a discount from banks and federal housing agencies, emerging as aggressive liquidators for the remains of the mortgage crisis that erupted nearly a decade ago.

As the housing market nationwide recovers, this is a dark corner from which banks, stung by hefty penalties for bungling mortgage modifications and foreclosures, have retreated. Federal housing officials, for the most part, have welcomed the new financial players as being more nimble and creative than banks with terms for delinquent borrowers.

But the firms are now drawing fire. Housing advocates and lawyers for borrowers contend that the private equity firms and hedge funds are too quick to push homes into foreclosure and are even less helpful than the banks had been in negotiating loan modifications with borrowers. Federal and state lawmakers are taking up the issue, questioning why federal agencies are selling loans at a discount of as much as 30 percent to such firms.

Read it all from the front page of today’s New York Times.

Sir Hector Sants is calling upon the wealthy to lend to credit unions and help run co-operatives in an attempt to raise their profile and fill the vast gap left by the shrinking payday lending sector.

The former chief executive of the City watchdog was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury last year to lead the Church of England’s task force on credit unions, but said they need greater support to help borrowers seeking short-term loans.

In an interview with FT Money, Sir Hector said: “Join a credit union ”” it doesn’t have to be your sole bank ”” and deposit money, which can then be lent out. There are often good terms if you need a loan.”

Read it all from the FT.

Sheffield Money will vet companies offering loans of up to £7,500, credit for white goods, savings and bank accounts and provide independent money and debt advice.
It is backed by the Church of England, which is setting up its own credit union, business leaders and companies such as Frees, which offers basic bank accounts to people with poor credit history.
Rev Peter Bradley, dean of Sheffield cathedral and chairman of Sheffield Money, said: “Sheffield Money is a bold and innovative solution to the problem of high-cost credit in our city.
“More people are struggling to make ends meet and for many, trapped in a cycle of borrowing more to cover extortionate loan repayments, this becomes a living nightmare.”

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French President Francois Hollande said that the 19 countries using the euro need their own government complete with a budget and parliament to cooperate better and overcome the Greek crisis.

“Circumstances are leading us to accelerate,” Hollande said in an opinion piece published by the Journal du Dimanche on Sunday. “What threatens us is not too much Europe, but a lack of it.”

While the euro zone has a common currency, fiscal and economic policies remain mostly in the hands of each member state. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi made a plea this week for deeper cooperation between the euro members after political squabbles over Greece almost led to a rupture in the single currency.

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When big questions, like the future of Europe, hang in the balance, it can be tempting to toy with grand theories about the ways in which religion affects culture and economics. A famous one was put forward by Max Weber (pictured), who posited a link between capitalism and Protestant ideas of guilt and salvation. Such theories usually contain a grain of truth, but religious determinism shouldn’t be pushed too far because there are always exceptions.

Still, as religious-determinist theories go, an interesting one was put forward by Giles Fraser, a well-known left-wing priest of the Church of England, in a recent radio broadcast. He suggested that behind the financial standoff between Greece and Germany, there was a theological difference (between western and eastern Christians) in the understanding of how humans are reconciled with God.

As Mr Fraser recalled, traditional Protestant and Catholic teaching has presented the self-sacrifice of Christ as the payment of a debt to God the Father. In this view, human sinfulness created a debt which simply had to be settled, but could not be repaid by humanity because of its fallen state; so the Son of God stepped in and took care of that vast obligation. For Orthodox theologians, this wrongly portrays God the Father as a sort of heavenly debt-collector who is himself constrained by some iron necessity; they prefer to see the passion story as an act of mercy by a God who is free. Over-simplifying only a little, Mr Fraser observed: “the idea that the cross is some sort of cosmic pay-back for human sin [reflects] a no-pain-no-gain obsession with suffering,” from an eastern Christian viewpoint.

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