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ECB Plans To Increase Interest Rates Amid Inflation Pressures!

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ECB Plans To Increase Interest Rates Amid Inflation Pressures!

The European Central Bank (ECB) has confirmed plans to increase interest rates for the first time in more than a decade to fight inflation pressures. In an unusually detailed statement, the ECB said it intends to raise its key rate by a quarter percentage point at its next policy meeting in July to minus 0.25% and increase it again in September, possibly by more than 0.25 percentage point.

After September, the ECB said it expects a “gradual but sustained path of further increases in interest rates.” The bank expects eurozone inflation of 3.5% in 2023 and 2.1% in 2024, both above the ECB’s target rate.

The ECB’s policy shift would come about a year after eurozone inflation rose above its 2% target. It would help narrow the gap with the Federal Reserve, which has increased interest rates twice since March to a range between 0.75% and 1%. Under the ECB’s plans, its key rate would rise to zero or higher after its Sept. 8 policy meeting, exiting negative territory for the first time in eight years.

Core inflation—which strips out volatile food and energy prices and is therefore considered a better predictor of future inflation—increased to 3.8% in the eurozone in May, the highest level since the euro launch in 1999. Core inflation has also risen to 4.1% in South Korea, 5.7% in Canada, and 6.2% in the U.K. and the U.S. Most major central banks, including the Fed and the ECB, aim to keep inflation at 2% over time.

Convicted Israeli FraudsterPlans To Launch $20 Million Cybercrime Fund!

Jacob Weizman
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Convicted Israeli FraudsterPlans To Launch $20 Million Cybercrime Fund!

That’s no joke! The Israeli Gal Barak was sentenced in Sept 2020 as the mastermind of cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria to several years in prison and some €4 million in restitution payments to victims of the scams. He has been on parole for a few months. In an interview with the Israeli Calcalist, Barak claimed that he would have compensated his victims as ordered by the court. That is a lie, he has not compensated any of his victims. Instead, he evidently used the stolen millions to establish a $20 million cybercrime fund.

The German Trials

German prosecutors have also filed criminal charges against Gal Barak claiming that he was the ringleader of the E&G Bulgaria cybercrime organization that defrauded German citizens. His lawyers have appealed against the indictment. The case is currently before the European Court of Justice and is due to be decided on July 6, 2022. In the event of an indictment in Germany, Barak will probably serve a few more years in prison.

The New Austrian Charges

The public prosecutor’s office in Austria has also brought a new charge against Gal Barak (screenshot left). The prosecutor in charge, Guenter Goessler, accuses Barak of not telling the truth in the trial against his wife Marina Barak (previously Marina Andreeva) and lying to the court. This is a criminal act and for this Barak should be punished with up to 3 years in prison.

Marina Barak was acquitted in the trial, perhaps in part because of Barak’s lies. The prosecution objected to the acquittal of Marina Barak. A decision on this by the Supreme Court in Austria is pending.

The German prosecutors intend to file charges against both Gal Barak and Marina Barak. It will be an interesting few months.

The Cybercrime Fund

Gal Barak is simply an obstinate liar and cybercriminal. That is a simple truth. Dressed in a dark business suit with a black tie, he lets himself be photographed by the Israeli Calcalist and gives a ridiculous interview. In this interview, Barak claims that he regrets his bad past and, after serving his prison sentence, would have repented and also compensated his victims – as ordered by the court. This is a lie! He did neither of them! When asked by FinTelegram, it was confirmed that Gal Barak had not yet paid a euro to his victims.

However, he is apparently using the stolen millions – investigations suggest more than $200 million – to make a $20 million cybercrime fund. The fund is supposed to use the creative potential and drive of convicted cybercriminals to make investors rich. That sounds like a dangerous threat, doesn’t it?

I’m not a bad man, I’m a good man. I acted bad, but I’m not a bad man. There’s also a Gal who did good, who contributed and helped. I only fell once, and I do not want to fall again. Not everyone is like that.

Gal Barak on his personality

In the interview, Gal Barak told Calcalista that at the beginning he aimed to raise $10 million for his cybercrime fund but he was approached by a family that wanted to invest $20 million in exchange for involvement on the fund’s board. The board would also include representatives of investors and lawyers. Barak would not want money from the fund, he says.

Contempt Of Justice

Gal Barak is a human symbol of the failure of justice in the fight against cybercrime. He can afford the most expensive lawyers with the money stolen from his victims. He shows no remorse, does not pay back his victims despite the court verdict, and instead sets up a cybercrime fund and publicly mocks the justice system and his victims via an interview.

Tech Stock Investors Brace For A Very Hard Landing!

Adrian Fuller
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Tech Stock Investors Brace For A Very Hard Landing!

According to the Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500’s information-technology sector has dropped 20% in 2022, its worst start to a year since 2002. Its gap with the broader S&P 500, down 14%, is the largest since 2004. Some investors, haunted by the 2000 dot-com bust, are bracing for bigger losses ahead. The declines have prompted investors to pull a record $7.6 billion out of technology-focused mutual funds and exchange-traded funds this year through April.

For years, shares of tech companies propelled the stock market higher, pushing major indexes to dozens of records. Excitement for everything from cloud computing to software and social media drove an epic runup in far-reaching corners of the market. More recently, the Federal Reserve’s accommodative policies at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic fueled a seemingly insatiable appetite for risky bets. 

The S&P 500 Value index outperforms the S&P 500 Growth index—including companies such as Tesla Inc., Nvidia Corp., and Meta Platforms Inc. —by 17 percentage points, its widest margin since 2000. Meanwhile, more than $48 billion has left funds tracking growth stocks, according to data provider EPFR, while investors have poured more than $13 billion into funds tracking value stocks.

Read the WSJ analysis here.

Microsoft’s Augmented-Reality Chief Resigns

Charlene Lensburg
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Microsoft’s Augmented-Reality Chief Resigns

Alex Kipman, a technical fellow at Microsoft who led its augmented-reality headset project, is stepping down, the Wall Street Journal reports. Kipman has been working for Microsoft for 20 years and was in charge of the team developing the HoloLens, an augmented-reality headset that projects digital objects into the real world.

Kipman’s group had been suffering from attrition, with many employees departing for other companies, WSJ says. The group felt overworked and struggled to meet technical specifications for its contract to develop an AR headset for the U.S. Army in a deal that could be worth more than $20 billion in the coming decade, people familiar with the project said.

Microsoft was one of the first movers in augmented reality. Its HoloLens was first announced in 2015 and has evolved into one of the world’s most advanced headsets. Rather than push it as a consumer device, Microsoft positioned it as a productivity tool for workplaces.

Read the full story on WSJ

Exposed! Bank Of Valetta Chairman And His Side Hustles with MGA!

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Exposed! Bank Of Valetta Chairman And His Side Hustles with MGA!

FinTelegram exposed that the Chairman of Malta’s largest Bank, Gordon Cordina, has a nice side hustle through E-Cubed Consultants Limited, a company registered in Malta and operating from its Mosta offices. Gordon Cordina owns half of the shares of E-cubed Consultants Ltd and serves as a director. His partner is Stephanie Vella. The firm’s auditors are RSM Malta Ltd. Fintelegram has received intelligence that clearly shows that Bank of Valletta‘s Chairman also acts as a consultant to the highly controversial Maltese regulator Malta Gaming Authority (MGA).

E-Cubed Consultants sends invoice to the Malta Gaming Authority

Gordon Cordina and E-Cubed Consultants charge MGA at a rate of €115 per hour for the so-called MGA Framework Agreement services, making just less than €4,000 per month from this sweet retainer. According to the invoices available to FinTelegram, Gordon Cordina himself provides part of the services to the MGA (see screenshot right). We are not aware of any other Chairman of a major bank that does such kind of personal business.

Interestingly, Cordina does not use his Bank of Valletta for his private business banking services. He opted for HSBC Bank Malta plc.

Bank of Valetta Chairman consults the Malta Gaming Authority

The Bank, headed by Gordon Cordina, saw its shares sliding heavily in the past years. The CEO of Malta Gaming Authority, Carl Brincat, and former MGA official Karl Brincat Peplow also hit the news for the wrong reasons after describing the due diligence of the license applicant Habanero as a “shitshow.”

It is a known fact that it is very complicated for non-Maltese citizens to open bank accounts for their newly set-up businesses at the Bank of Valletta. Gaming companies are also finding difficulties operating their bank account with Malta’s largest bank. It is unknown whether Gordon Cordina has made his possible conflict of interest known to the Bank’s shareholders.

Malta was grey-listed by the FATF in June 2021 and has since seen an exodus of licensed firms.

Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy Holds On To Its “Bitcoin Long” Strategy!

Jacob Weizman
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Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy Holds On To Its “Bitcoin Long” Strategy!

Nasdaq-listed US Software firm MicroStrategy (Symbol: MSTR) is one of the major Bitcoin players and influencers in the global Bitcoin segment. The company has a market cap of some $2.7 billion and purchased over 129,000 bitcoins since August 2020. The company, co-founded by CEO Michael Saylor in 1989, first bought the cryptocurrency by converting $250 million of its cash holdings into 21,454 BTC. Since then, it has converted proceeds from the software business and €2.4 billion in debts to acquire Bitcoins.

$1.7 billion of the debt is in the senior convertible notes, at an interest rate of between 0% and 0.75%. The firm has also taken on $500 million worth of debt in senior secured notes that offer a 6.1% interest rate. The latest debt is a “first-of-its-kind” $205 million bitcoin-backed loan taken in April at an interest rate of roughly 4%.

The company’s total BTC holding is worth over $3.8 billion based on the current price of around $30,000, down from nearly $6 billion in December 2021.

Rumors said, that MicroStrategy could be facing a potential margin call if the BTC price fell below $21,000. However, Michael Saylor has previously said in a tweet that the company has “enough Bitcoin to put up as collateral” should it come to that.

MicroStrategy Chief Financial Officer Andrew Kang told The Wall Street Journal recently, that the company’s strategy to buy and hold bitcoin (BTC) for the long term won’t change despite the crypto downturn.

Breaking! Reuters Report Accuses Binance Of Crime Facilitation!

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Breaking! Reuters Report Accuses Binance Of Crime Facilitation!

Reuters published an interesting report about the world’s largest crypto platform Binance. According to the report, Binance processed transactions totaling at least $2.35 billion stemming from hacks, investment frauds, and illegal drug sales between 2017 and 2021. Allegedly, in 2019 Binance processed criminal funds totaling $770 million.

With around 120 million users worldwide, Binance processes crypto trades worth hundreds of billions of dollars a month. The crypto giant used its financial power to expand into traditional business, announcing a $200 million investment in media group Forbes this year and committing $500 million to Elon Musk’s bid to take over Twitter. However, a Forbes spokesperson said Binance’s investment would not take place. Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Binance declined to make Changpeng Zhao (CZ) available for an interview. Responding to written questions, Chief Communications Officer Patrick Hillmann said Binance did not consider Reuters’ calculation to be accurate. He did not respond to requests to provide Binance’s own figures for the cases identified in this article. He said Binance was building “the most sophisticated cyber forensics team on the planet” and was seeking to “further improve our ability to detect illegal crypto activity on our platform.”

Go to the Reuters report

African Payments Company MFS Africa Acquires U.S. Fintech!

Charlene Lensburg
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African Payments Company MFS Africa Acquires U.S. Fintech!

MFS Africa (www.mfsafrica.com), a digital payments company, will acquire Oklahoma-based Global Technology Partners (GTP) in a rare instance of an African group closing a technology deal in the United States. The acquisition, which will allow MFS to issue prepaid cards to customers, marks another development in Africa’s fast-growing fintech scene. MFS had paid $34 million for GTP in cash and stock.

Based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, GTP is the number one processor for prepaid cards in Africa, with over 80 banks – including UBA, Ecobank, BIA, Stanbic, Coris, NSIA, and Zenith Bank – using its platform. GTP’s client base covers 34 countries and is fully connected to the Visa, Mastercard, GIM, GIMAC, and Verve networks.

Robert Merrick, founder and chairman of GTP, said, “MFS Africa is an ideal home for GTP, and we are focused on adding new features and functionality to our platform. and making a significant contribution to MFS Africa’s business growth.”

MFS Africa raised $100 million in 2021 in a mix of debt and equity. The company has diversified mainly through acquisitions, including the purchase of Baxi, a Nigerian digital payments service, last October for an undisclosed sum. Dare Okoudjou, founder and CEO of MFS, said that about 500,000 customers actively used GTP prepaid cards but that the market’s potential size was many times that amount. About 400 million people use mobile money in Africa, he said.

Hundreds of millions of Africans who do not have bank accounts store their money on their cell phones or digital mobile wallets. But many international companies, including Netflix and Amazon, do not accept digital money payments from Africa, according to Okoudjou. He said the acquisition of GTP would solve that problem.

Tech Investor Peter Thiel Calls Warren Buffet A

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Tech Investor Peter Thiel Calls Warren Buffet A

Famous tech investor Peter Thiel presented while speaking at a major cryptocurrency conference in Miami, a crypto hot spot. He wanted to expose anti-crypto investors, he said. Warren Buffett is top-ranked on this enemy list. Thiel referred to Buffet as a “sociopathic grandpa” for Buffett’s previous comments casting doubt on the value of crypto.

“Enemy No. 1,” Thiel said. In addition to Buffett, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink are top-ranked. “They need to be allocating some of their money to bitcoin,” he said. “We need to push back on them.”

Thiel co-founded PayPal in 1998 with Elon Musk, then departed to run a series of investment firms, including Founders Fund. Forbes noted that his enemy list was the most striking moment in an otherwise straightforwardly Bitcoin 2022. Thiel also criticized central banks worldwide, slamming them for their slow uptake of digital technology. The increase in bitcoin’s value over the last several years is “telling us that the central banks are bankrupt,” he said. It’s “telling us that we’re at the end of the fiat money regime.”

Read the full story here on Forbes.

New SEC Rules May Stop The SPAC Boom!

Adrian Fuller
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New SEC Rules May Stop The SPAC Boom!

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted yesterday to propose new rules for special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), casting a big shadow over the booming market. If adopted, these public shell companies — formed to acquire a business and take it public without the fuss of the traditional IPO process — would have to provide more investor disclosures, especially about their ownership and performance forecasts. In some cases, SPACs may have to register as investment companies, subjecting them to stricter rules.

More than 600 SPACs raised some $160 billion last year, according to SPAC Research, but activity has slowed down recently. About 50 SPACs have raised $10 billion in the first quarter of this year. A fund that tracks hundreds of SPACs has lost about half its value since its peak in early 2021, as investors sour on many of the companies that have gone public this way.

The rules would give SPAC and IPO investors a similar level of protection. “A few years ago, people would say, well, you could maybe use a SPAC transaction because it might be a more efficient way to bring a company public,” Gary Gensler, the agency’s chair, told reporters after yesterday’s meeting. “Study after study has shown us that, in fact, these are very costly mechanisms.”

Read the full story on The New York Times
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