Jesse Griffiths

Timely advice for UK from a Fed. Reserve Governor on financial crises:

".... lessons for policymakers: maintain a through-the-cycle perspective rather than believing "this time is different"; resist pressure to loosen regulations during boom times. "

uk.investing.com/news/economy...

The government’s new approach to Financial Services risks undermining its growth mission and the Industrial Strategy Having read the government’s new Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy, I fear that it risks undermining the government’s broader growth mission and Industrial Strategy by prioritisin...

The government's new Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness strategy risks undermining its industrial policy & growth mission.

Here's my analysis:

www.linkedin.com/pulse/govern...

Europe | Still Banking on Coal European banks have channeled $20 billion to the coal industry since Glasgow. Europe’s biggest coal banks are Barclays from the UK ($4 billion), Deutsche Bank from Germany ($2 billion), BNP Paribas…

Barclays is the bigger financer of coal in Europe - new report.

www.stillbankingoncoal.org/report/europe

💰 UK pensions (£3trn) are still backing fossil fuels—even as climate shocks threaten to wreck the economy and our retirements.

We back an amendment to the Pensions Schemes Bill to ban thermal coal + review fossil fuel risk.

Here's my NZI piece on this: lnkd.in/es9cc4gY
#ClimateRisk #Pensions

How the next financial crisis starts The climate shocks that could trigger wider market turmoil

How the next financial crisis starts on.ft.com/46dSz0R

How the next financial crisis starts - long read focussing on the impact of physical risk on insurers, and how this could lead to property price falls that could trigger a crisis

📘 Bottom line:
This is a thoughtful strategy with promising signs — but it’s not yet the step change we need.

Major gaps on inequality, financial resilience, and the role of finance.

Would love to hear how others are interpreting it.
#IndustrialStrategy #Finance #UKPolicy

🤝 Partners named, but barely engaged
Trade unions get a mention. Civil society? Once.

Real transformation needs deeper, lasting engagement — not just business and Whitehall.

And if we’re serious about regional growth — where’s the plan for regional banks?

Other countries use them to support SMEs and local economies.
In the UK, SME lending has fallen. We need more than tweaks — we need structural reform.

A Fair Banking Act should be on the table.

🏗️ Public investment and regional finance: not bold enough
Scaling up the British Business Bank & National Wealth Fund is good. But they’re still small.

Let them operate as real banks, able to leverage their capital and issue bonds. That would change the game.

There’s enthusiasm for fintech, deregulation and capital markets.

But no mention of financial crises — which are baked into our current system — or of the UK’s role in enabling dirty money and tax dodging.

🏦 Finance is a priority — but should it be?
It’s listed as a key sector, but the strategy ignores a major tension:
Do we want finance to serve global capital or UK investment?

These aren’t the same — and often conflict.

🌱 Growth — but what kind?
It’s all-in on growth and productivity — but says little about inclusive or sustainable growth.

The real drivers of the cost of living crisis — wealth inequality, income gaps, uneven opportunity — barely get a mention.

📘 At 140+ pages, the strategy clearly tries to break from business-as-usual: more long-termism, state capacity, sector focus. There’s much to like — and much still unresolved. I'll focus on the role of the financial sector in the strategy.

Here’s my take on the UK’s new Industrial Strategy — and what’s still missing 🧵
A serious piece of work, with big ambitions. But also some major omissions. My analysis: 👇

Financial Secrecy Index – Tax Justice Network The Financial Secrecy Index is a ranking of countries most complicit in helping individuals to hide their finances from the rule of law. The index evaluates how much wiggle room for financial secrecy…

The 2025 Financial Secrecy Index confirms the UK's shameful position as a major enabler of companies and individuals who want to hide their money from the rule of law, with 4 of the 20 worst offenders: Guernsey (9) BVI (16) Caymans (19) UK (20)

#stopdirtymoney

Lack of finance is holding back existing, as well as new, green technology This post is by Jaya Sood, Senior Economist at the New Economics Foundation. At the UK’s Innovation Zero conference in April, one argument took centre stage: while private capital flows steadily in…

Great article: how a lack of financing (on the right terms) holds back proven technologies, not just novel ones. The National Wealth Fund should back proven tech like wind, solar, retrofitting where the market fails to scale up.

greenallianceblog.org.uk/2025/05/22/l...

@NEF @GreenAllianceUK

How China’s green commitments are shaping its financial regulation China is trying to take the lead as a green financial regulator, even as the country continues to open coal plants.

Interesting article on how China is using financial sector policy to boost its green economy.
Key tools, which could be used in the UK include giving cheap loans for green investments, and reducing the cost of capital through the collateral framework.

greencentralbanking.com/2025/05/23/h...

Demand fairer, greener pensions for all! Our pensions system is broken, with millions of us facing poverty in retirement. It also fuels the climate crisis by investing billions in fossil fuels. But this money could instead be funding our…

Major coalition pensions campaign launched today - please sign petition & share!
act.350.org/sign/fairer-...

Calls on govt to truly fix the system to deliver decent pensions for all, invest in the just transition, & phase out destructive investment.

uk.news.yahoo.com/jason-isaacs...

America Is Becoming the World’s Largest Tax Haven | by Joseph E. Stiglitz - Project Syndicate Joseph E. Stiglitz pillories the Trump administration's gutting of enforcement, embrace of crypto, and rejection of multilateralism.

America is becoming the greatest tax haven in history - from Joseph Stiglitz

www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/a...

Changing Finance: new this month – April - Finance Innovation Lab Integrity – or lack of it HMRC faces major problems in its efforts to crack down on tax dodging, and the numbers of prosecutions of the firms that help tax dodgers have collapsed. Little wonder then…

Here's my succinct roundup of financial system news for this month - enjoy!

Main stories are: poor enforcement of economic crime rules; how the financial system is/isn't adapting to the climate crisis. Oh & whether the whole system will collapse ...

financeinnovationlab.org/changing-fin...

Who gets access to Ministers and civil servants? Great report from @spotlightcorruption.org showing, for example, that business/commercial stakeholders got 23 times as many meetings as charity/consumer/public interest group stakeholders.

www.spotlightcorruption.org/wp-content/u...

Interesting attempt to identify and analyse who 'elites' are across the world - the World Elite Database.

worldelitedatabase.org?mc_cid=c881c...

And a useful summary, where I got the pic (which shows how incredibly male elites are)

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

There's still one day left to apply to be a trustee at Debt Justice! Trustees are volunteers who play an important role in our governance. The deadline to apply is tomorrow morning at 9am, more details about the role and how to apply here:
debtjustice.org.uk/news/trustee...

Are we close to another financial crisis? At the end of a slightly terrifying week, where a major financial crisis was averted – for now – I thought I’d reflect on whether such a crisis might happen anyway, and what this means for UK…

Labour's focus on deregulation of finance is dangerous in a time of global financial instability :
www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Makes similar points to the ones I made here about v high debt levels + growth of shadow banking as major underlying problems :

www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-clo...

Official Development Assistance (ODA) Official Development Assistance (ODA) or “global aid” is a transfer of money and resources from predominantly richer countries to developing countries to help fight poverty and support economic…

What is happening to international aid? Brilliant visualisation showing:

- Falling in absolute terms after a long period of increase
- Been fairly stable as a % of donor GNI over a long period
- decreasing shares to health, low-income countries

Triodos Bank exits NZBA after alliance drops 1.5°C target Dutch lender Triodos Bank has announced its decision to leave the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), following a majority vote among the network’s 120 members to ease conditions for membership

Triodos Bank has quit the Net Zero Banking Alliance after it abandoned commitment to 1.5 degrees.

The battle to green the financial system continues - but now strategies need to focus on mobilising allies to get governments to act.

www.netzeroinvestor.net/news-and-vie...

Killer stat from New Capital Consensus report on why the UK fin. system is SO BAD at supporting UK firms: In 2023 UK stock markets raised just £4bn in primary capital (for new companies / expansion) - but paid £87bn in dividends & £35bn in share buybacks.

tinyurl.com/2rp6eaft

So it's great that the BoE is highlighting this issue, but it needs to be taken much more seriously, particularly in an era where financial system risks are already high.

We also identify wider risks of financial crime, financial exclusion, bias and reinforcing monopoly power. Ultimately, we argue for a precautionary approach to regulation, both because the risks are large and because it will be very hard for regulators to fully understand them.