What’s all this Bitcoin business?

While the term ‘financial education’ generally has a direct connotation with education on investing, its wider use of the term is becoming increasingly important.

Your walk of life, status, income, age or any other demographic variable imaginable does not really matter; financial education is becoming essential for the average family trying to decide how to balance its budget, purchase a new home, cater for day-to-day needs, some even fund education for their children, and more importantly, budget and plan on what income s/he will be receiving upon retirement - All needs to be seen in the greater scheme of things.

Not on an individual basis (how much can I save for myself), neither for the short term (how much money I require in five years’ time), but we need to cater for our family, for their needs, today, some people are even convinced, as much as 30-40 years down the line.

Many Money Markets Are Not What They Use To Be

People have always been responsible for managing their own finances on a day-to-day basis, such as catering for insurance spending, go on holiday, buy that piece of furniture - but the growing developments in the financial world have made financial education and awareness increasingly important for financial well-being and standard of everyday living.

Many money markets are not what they used to be. They have become increasingly sophisticated. Investors are faced with an array of products and platforms from which to base their investment decision upon, with a large range of options. This has really made financial education the most important and subsequently makes the responsibility and risk for financial decisions that will have a major impact on an individual’s future life even greater.

Pensions (in a general sense) offered by many governments for example, are no longer sufficient to sustain a lifestyle post-retirement, which is leading investors to seek other alternatives away from government. With life expectancy increasing, people’s decisions on pensions is particularly important as this will ultimately determine the extent to which individuals will be enjoying longer periods of retirement.

Individuals will not be able to choose the right savings or investments for themselves if they are not financially aware of what there is available in the market.

It is no surprise that, globally, there exists a rather low level of understanding of financial matters as well as of basic economic concepts, and this of course includes Gibraltar. A situation, which professionals believe renders even the most basic of financial products to appear complex to the average customer/investor who has not been exposed to any sort of financial education.

This allows ‘Joe Public’ to fail to plan ahead or to choose products that meet their investment requirements and hence could result in experiencing difficulties in the event of some unexpected adverse circumstance. Even worse, if bad investment and financial decisions are taken along the years, it will make it even harder for individuals to ensure a satisfactory standard of living. Therefore we can safely say that financial education all boils down to improving the financial well-being of individuals and society.

Many in the financial industry stress of the importance of promoting financial education amongst students at an early age, as the knowledge and skills acquired by them at this age, will provide them with a solid background on market knowledge throughout their lifetime.

Financial education and literacy will go a long way in guiding individuals on their retirement plans and they will inevitably be more likely to save and to challenge (in a good way) financial service providers to develop products that truly respond to their needs. This, experts believe, should have positive effects on both investment levels and economic growth.

How Does The Bitcoin Fit Into The Blockchain?

In the last few months or before Christmas, news spread generally, especially locally, about cryptocurrency. I imagine that many will have tried to understand what ‘Blockchain and Bitcoin’ is all about and how it works?

Speaking for myself, illiterate in the science of economics, I was not much wiser at the end of some intensive reading session. So again I went to seek clarification and obtain some knowledge from those much wiser and informed then me on the subject.

Admittedly, I have been swatting up during the Xmas holiday period trying to properly get my head round the new Blockchain (Bitcoin) financial phenomena, a simple summary is as follows:

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