Right at the end of the week, just like last time, the government announced the intention to further extend the payment deferral scheme for credit cards, store cards, and loans. All of this is with no impact on a customer’s credit bureau record, although it does seem like there will be some increased scrutiny via increased questioning for eligibility.

Although contactless card transactions have increased through lockdown, credit card spend is actually down. Clearly some consumers are using the lockdown measures to simply retain more cash and pay down debt (and not just on financial services products).

There are now over 9m workers in the UK on furlough. Many are worried that they will be made redundant once the scheme ends. And, the government is clearly also worried too, both with the huge cost of the scheme and reports of misuse.

It is all a strange situation. For many, life seems to just be carrying on just as (or returning to) normal, evidenced with large crowds at the shops in England this week. However, for others, the picture is clearly different, with more large employers announcing workforce reductions. This is all on the back of the total debt in the UK now being bigger than GDP. The situation is clearly developing…. one to continue to watch

A few other interesting news snippets too.

• An interesting article on dread risk. Dread risk is psychological the fear of a high profile event, which is disproportionate to the actual impact or likelihood, in comparison to other events. (911 vs heart disease is used as an example). Interesting as it does drive our behavior.
• On another topic altogether… the New Horizons spacecraft, the one that visited Pluto, is now so far from Earth the stars are actually starting to look different due to parallax. Fascinating stuff.

Have a good weekend everyone…. @chris_w_tweet

The main story this week has been more economic news, and not so great really.

The UK economy has shrunk by 20%. It’s the biggest contraction ever, making for some stunning graphs. This one here showing the depth of the downturn in stark terms vs what we have seen historically, it is quite something (click image for original article)

And the UK has also been projected to have some of the worst impact overall, with or without a secondary peak.

All of this is adding up to a tough time for the UK economy, and some of this fallout is now being seen, with significant job losses starting to be announced.

This is expected to have knock-on impacts in the house prices market, and indeed other associated markets such as vehicles. could also be impacted if dealers as an industry don’t hold their nerve….. and a valuation reduction, will impact profitability and potentially even some business models for companies making secured loans. This is one to watch.

On the digitalization front this continues (more to be written on another time). However, have been trialing a new video format. The first one is up, with an interesting chat I had on Robotic Process Automation, link here.

Have a good weekend everyone… @chris_w_tweet