Personal Finance

It is often said that in business, non-progredi est regredi (if you are not moving forward, you are going backward). This maxim has never been more relevant than in modern-day America. Technology has grown leaps and bounds and is always...

April 15th, a day most of us dread, is fast approaching. Have you filed your taxes yet? Economists believe most people are rational calculating machines, but many of us do not behave rationally about filing our taxes. April 15th, a...

There has been an international outcry over the leaked HSBC files, which provide evidence that the bank’s Swiss arm helped wealthy clients put millions of dollars’ worth of assets out of the reach of the tax authorities. Naturally, politicians from...

Peer-to-peer lending, the online platforms which allow you and I to lend directly to people and businesses who want to borrow, has been hailed as disruptive technology. Cheered by savers who have been stuck with rock-bottom interest rates, and by...

Countries are competing to lower their tax rates to please the corporate giants, but the result is a massive collective loss of revenue. Only international coordination can wipe out the practice and defeat the negative influence of the Big Four...

The Brisbane G20 Summit offered civil society groups an opportunity to renew demands for a financial transaction tax (FTT). But in the end it proved a missed opportunity to build international cooperation on financial reform. The Brisbane G20 Summit offered...

A month after America’s banks witnessed their largest quarterly revenue increase since 2009; Federal Reserve announced that it would increase capital requirements for eight of the largest banks across the country. Under the latest implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms,...

The revelation of the leaked Luxembourg tax files and the related reporting of the extent of the tax avoidance industry in the UK should come as little surprise. Tax legislation, and its enforcement in the UK, has been based on...

In Nigeria, as well as around the world, a majority of taxpayers view tax not as a contractual contribution to government expense, but as an involuntary tribute to be paid to avoid prosecution and penalty. Merely transcribing taxes from economic...

What would have been the largest class-action lawsuit in US history was set to go to trial this month. The defendants, Visa and MasterCard, were being sued by practically every merchant in America for alleged fee-fixing. Some estimates pegged the...

Steep rises in the cost of higher education, especially in the US and the UK, have been accompanied by the declining value of degrees, leading some commentators to predict that the student bubble is about to deflate. Quebec’s series of spectacular...

Across the Middle East and South-East Asia, Islamic financial institutions hold aggregated assets estimated to be worth $50 billion. To some, this cash-rich sector represents a huge opportunity for growth and investment. But perhaps, what Islamic banks can really offer...

Having a good credit score is very important for your financial future, so if you find out that your credit score is poor, it’s time to make some changes. The key to improving credit is to start making sound financial...

Over the last two decades, European policy makers have imposed restrictive fiscal policies on member states. They have concentrated on the design of fiscal rules and the structure of budgetary processes but they have never thought of introducing a new...

Many of us are familiar with the basic services that banks provide. In simple, straightforward cases, banks keep our money and pay an interest on it, while providing the convenience of cash withdrawals along their network of ATMs. But are...