The Conversation: Black Death and the coronavirus

Infrastructure is the new buzzword in finance these days even though infrastructure has been important at least since the days when the Romans built their roads across Britain and Europe. The difference today is that increasingly the government says it cannot finance such infrastructure - roads, railways, power generation, telecoms, airports etc. The telecoms industry is already completely privately owned in most countries as are an increasing number of airports across the world. But governments everywhere are now looking ever more to public private partnerships (PPPs) to provide the annual funding (the annual revenues required to service bank loan and bond interest payments and capital repayments and equity dividends) as well as the actual financing (the arranging of bank loans, bond issues and equity share issues) to provide the cash up-front.

There has been a lot of anecdotal discussion around the volatility of the price of bitcoin and whether or not a bubble is currently present in cryptocurrencies. Much of this impassioned debate is based around speculative trading activities but what would be the outcome if we considered its place as part of a balanced portfolio of investments?

Islamic Finance: The New Regulatory Challenge is a new book co-authored by ICMA Centre Visiting Professors Simon Archer and Rifaat Ahmed Abdel Karim. The book was launched recently at the International Centre For Education In Islamic Finance (INCEIF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We caught up with Professor Simon Archer to discuss his role at the ICMA Centre and the new book.