The advent of new digital currencies has challenged our notions about money, its function and purpose, and our faith in the financial and banking structures that underpin its legitimacy. Oonagh McDonald charts the spectacular rise of cryptocurrencies over the past decade and considers the opportunities and threats that cryptocurrencies pose to existing fiat currencies. This revised edition includes a new chapter dealing with the high-profile bankruptcies of the recent “crypto winter”. The book considers how regulatory bodies have been slow to respond to a technology that is evading existing regulatory frameworks. Urgent and more robust protection is needed from fraudulent initial coin offerings, scams and hacks. Throughout her analysis, McDonald shows that trust is fundamental to the operation of finance and that this will ultimately protect commercial bank money from the threat of new digital currencies. The book offers readers an insightful appraisal of the future of money and the challenges facing regulatory bodies.

The advent of new digital currencies has challenged our notions about money, its function and purpose, and our faith in the financial and banking structures that underpin its legitimacy. Oonagh McDonald examines the challenges, opportunities and threats that cryptocurrencies pose to existing fiat currencies and their potential to change how global finance operates. From Bitcoin to Facebook's Diem, the book charts the spectacular rise of cryptocurrencies over the past decade alongside the much slower regulatory response. It assesses the potential of the technology underpinning new digital currencies - blockchain, digital tokens and smart contracts - to evade existing regulatory frameworks and considers the need for more robust protection from fraudulent initial coin offerings, scams and hacks. The book examines the motivations of central banks as they begin to explore opportunities for an alternative global digital currency, and what this might mean for the supremacy of the dollar and other fiat currencies. The future of cash is also considered. Throughout her analysis, McDonald shows that trust is fundamental to the operation of finance and that this will ultimately protect commercial bank money from the threat of new digital currencies. The book offers readers an insightful appraisal of the future of money and the challenges facing regulatory bodies.

Using extensive documentary evidence and interviews with former Lehman employees, Oonagh McDonald reveals the decisions that led to Lehman's collapse, investigates why the government refused a bail-out and whether the implications of this refusal were fully understood. In clear and accessible language she demonstrates both the short and long term effects of Lehman's collapse. -- .

This book provides a compelling account of the rigging of benchmarks during and after the financial crisis of 2007-08. Written in clear language accessible to the non-specialist, it provides the historical context necessary for understanding the benchmarks - LIBOR, FOREX and the Gold and Silver Fixes - and shows how and why they have to be reformed in the face of rapid technological changes in markets. Though banks have been fined and a few traders have been jailed, justice will not be done until senior bankers are made responsible for their actions. Provocative and rigorously argued, this book makes concrete recommendations for improving the security of the financial services industry and holding bankers to account. -- .

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. This book examines the role of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other key players in the American mortgage market, in precipitating the current global financial crisis. From President Clinton's announcement of the 'National Home Ownership Strategy' in 1995 to its collapse in 2008, this book deftly explains the aims and consequences of extending mortgage lending to people who could not afford home ownership. Bankers, investment banks, rating agencies and derivatives have all been awarded their share of the blame, while politicians, regulators and government agencies have successfully avoided theirs. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been implicated, but the true story of their marriage made in hell has never been told.