Oscar is a senior reporter in London. He writes about finance and markets, with a particular focus on fintech.
His work on "pump and dump" scams in cryptocurrency markets was shortlisted for the prestigious Gerald Loeb Awards in 2018 in the beat reporting category and the same reporting has also been cited by the US Securities and Exchange Committee.
Prior to Business Insider, he was the stock market reporter for the London Evening Standard and Independent newspapers.
BI PRIME: Banks, asset managers, and even Google have invested almost $300 million into Symphony, a secure, cloud-based chat platform conceived as a hub for any and all financial work. The goal for: to help build a viable competitor to Bloomberg LP.
It's much better to just buy stocks whenever and hold them for the long-term, according to UBS' Justin Waring, the Investment Strategist Americas in the Chief Investment Office of the Wealth Management division.
N26 plans to run a 'beta' testing phase before rolling out to its 50,000-strong UK waiting list in the coming weeks. The app-only bank was founded in Berlin, Germany, but currently operates in 17 markets across Europe and has 1.5 million customers.
Aston Martin went public in London on Wednesday. Shares were priced at £19, valuing the luxury-car maker at £4.3 billion. After a small price bump, shares have fallen to £18.40. The performance underlines weakness in the London IPO market and ongoing trade war and Brexit fears in the auto sector.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch plans to move as many as 400 sales and trading jobs to Paris as part of Brexit preparations. The bank produced an information leaflet for workers who may be affected that was circulated internally in August and trumpeted the benefits of Paris.
The possible movement of jobs comes as banks increasingly fear the consequences of a so-called "hard Brexit." Once seen as highly unlikely, many senior figures in the City now worry that there is a realistic chance of Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal on their future relationship.
London-based 'venture builder' Blenheim Chalcot is opening an office in New York, its first in the US. The company is a "venture builder" — it seeds and then supports startups in everything from fintech to education and media.
'Stablecoins' are the hottest thing in crypto right now, with over 50 projects in development. A 'stablecoin' is a cryptocurrency that's price is pegged to a real-world asset like gold or the dollar. Here's a guide to what they're used for, how they work, and why people are excited about them.
The London Block Exchange plans to launch a new cryptocurrency pegged to the pound: LBXPeg. One-for-one sterling reserves will be held in a segregated bank account.
Openbank CEO Ezequiel Szafir told BI that Andrea Orcel will have "the same strategy but make it go faster and further" when he joins as CEO of Santander next year.
Chinese crypto mining company Bitmain has filed IPO documents with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The preliminary documents show Bitmain had revenues of $2.8 billion in the first half of 2018.
2018-09-26T13:00:00Z
PRIME: Circle is becoming the first official issuer of USDC, a new digital currency pegged to the dollar that it helped to develop. Circle will hold dollars one-to-one in reserve at one of four banking partners. The reserves will be audited monthly by Grant Thornton.
Lenders including Santander and Societe Generale are testing the Interbank Information Network (IIN). JPMorgan built the information sharing programme on its own proprietary blockchain platform, Quorom, and has been testing it with a handful of lenders since October 2017.
Beijing released a white paper Monday attacking what it called the "protectionist practices" and "trade bullyism practices of the U.S. administration." It said negotiations between the two sides couldn't take place "under the threat of tariffs."
2018-09-24T07:06:00Z
Hernan Cristerna, JPMorgan's Global Co-head of M&A, told Business Insider: "A prolonged trade war will, of course, mean large cross-border deals are more difficult and harder to get across the line."
2018-09-21T08:45:49Z
Charlie Dupree, who left Deutsche Bank for JPMorgan in June, presented his proposals to Deutsche Bank CFO James von Moltke in April. Dupree said Deutsche Bank should spin out its investment bank and consider a merger for the rest of its operations to combat its persistent underperformance.
The UK's Treasury Select Committee released a report into crypto assets on Wednesday. The report called the space a "Wild West" and calls for anti-money laundering and consumer protection regulation.
President Donald Trump tweeted Monday: "Tariffs have put the U.S. in a very strong bargaining position, with Billions of Dollars, and Jobs, flowing into our Country - and yet cost increases have thus far been almost unnoticeable."
The investment bank expects around €250 billion of daily euro clearing business will shift from London's LCH to Deutsche Borse's Eurex in Frankfurt. Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and HSBC have all moved some of their euro-denominated clearing business to the continent in recent months.
2018-09-13T11:23:21Z
Turkey's central bank raised its interest rate to 24% from 17.75% on Thursday, beating market forecasts. Earlier in the day, Turkish President Erdogan stoked fears that the central bank's independence could be under threat by calling for low interest rates.