We provide practical recommendations to policymakers and regulators on measures to promote a money and banking system that supports a fair, democratic and sustainable economy. Below are some of our most recent policy briefings and consultation submissions.
The PRA’s future approach to policy
December 2022
Positive Money’s response to the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA)’s Discussion Paper on its future approach to policy in light of the Financial Services and Markets Bill.
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The case for a windfall tax on banks
November 2022
This short briefing, prepared for MPs, makes the case for a windfall tax on banks to recapture the tens of billions of pounds the Bank of England is set to pay out to the banks via interest on reserves.
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Financial Services and Markets Bill written evidence
October 2022
Positive Money’s response to the Public Bill Committee’s call for evidence on the Financial Services and Markets Bill. We argue against new international competitiveness and growth objectives for regulators, and make the case for more appropriate regulation of cryptoassets.
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The crypto-asset industry
September 2022
Positive Money’s response to the Treasury Committee’s inquiry into the crypto-asset industry, in which we argue that there are few convincing use cases for crypto that wouldn’t be better provided by a fully risk-free publicly-issued digital form of cash.
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Net Zero Review Call for Evidence
September 2022
Positive Money’s submission to the government’s Net Zero Review, arguing for an ambitious, whole-of-government strategy for aligning financial flows with a 1.5oC transition pathway, and adaptation and biodiversity goals.
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Financial Services and Markets Bill briefing
September 2022
This briefing, prepared ahead of the second reading of the Financial Services and Markets Bill, focuses on proposals for a new ‘competitiveness’ objective for regulators, as well as other provisions in the Bill relating to MiFID II, access to cash and cryptoassets.
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The financial sector and the UK’s net zero transition
July 2022
The BEIS 2022 Green Finance Strategy is a critical opportunity to address a major missing piece of the UK’s Net Zero architecture: a clear plan for making London a ‘Net Zero Financial Centre’ and align public and private financial flows with the government’s decarbonisation, adaptation and nature goals.
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Update to the Green Finance Strategy: Call for Evidence
June 2022
The UK should take a leadership role within international institutions to create a green international monetary order, which unlocks the potential of the Global South to transition to a net zero and nature-positive global financial system.
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Environmental Audit Committee Call for Evidence: Accelerating the transition from fossil fuels and securing energy supplies
May 2022
The government should phase out all tax relief and financial support for the fossil fuel industry and support green investment through targeted lending schemes, such as the Bank of England’s Term Funding Scheme and the UK Infrastructure Bank.
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Bank of England Consultation on proposal to withdraw Financial Policy Committee’s mortgage affordability test
May 2022
Our submission argues that the impact of withdrawing the Recommendation would be to fuel house prices rises during a period of economic disruption.
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Lords Economic Affairs Committee Call for Evidence on UK Energy Supply and Investment
March 2022
Our response to the Lords EAC argues that the only responsible way of stabilising energy prices in the long term is to reduce the share of oil and gas in the system, by (1) stopping all new fossil fuel exploration and expansion, and (2) rapidly upscaling investment in renewable energy.
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Banking on Property policy briefing
March 2022
A condensed briefing summarising the findings of our Banking on Property report for policymakers.
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Future Regulatory Framework (FRF) Review: Proposals for Reform
February 2022
Positive Money’s response to HM Treasury’s consultation on proposals for the Future Regulatory Framework for financial services. Our submission urges against giving regulators new objectives for growth and competitiveness, and puts forward alternative objectives which could help ensure finance better serves society.
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Principles for the effective management and supervision of climate-related financial risks: Basel Committee Consultation
February 2022
Positive Money UK, EU, and US joint response to the Basel Committee’s consultation on the management and supervision of climate-related financial risks.
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Briefing on the risks of ‘competitiveness’ objective for financial regulation
January 2022
The Treasury’s Financial Services Future Regulatory Framework Review is looking into the rules for UK financial services. The Balanced Economy Project and Positive Money collaborated on this 1-page briefing, explaining why the proposed ‘competitiveness’ objective for regulators should be opposed.
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Environmental Audit Committee Consultation on Aligning the UK’s economic goals with environmental sustainability
January 2022
Our submission argues that GDP’s primacy in policymaking should be replaced by a dashboard of social and environmental indicators, such as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Dashboard of Wellbeing Indicators.
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Lords Economic Affairs Committee Inquiry on Central Bank Digital Currencies
October 2021
A CBDC could have huge benefits, such as continued access to public money in the digital economy, a more resilient financial system, more effective macroeconomic policy, more efficient and cheaper payments, as well as a more level playing field for financial services. However there are some risks if a CBDC is not designed and implemented in the right way.
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BEIS Inquiry: Climate change – How can the Government get to ‘net zero’?
August 2021
Positive Money’s submission argues for a new Green Finance Action Taskforce (GFAT) to ensure cross-government coordination on greening the financial system.
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Treasury Committee Inquiry: An Equal Recovery
July 2021
Positive Money’s submission argues that the UK housing market has become ‘too big to fail’ and disconnected from the real economy.
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Options for greening the Bank of England’s Corporate Bond Purchase Scheme
July 2021
Our submission to the Bank of England’s consultation on the CPBS argues that bold measures to align the CBPS with environmental objectives is consistent not only with the new environmental provisions in the Bank’s updated remits, but also with its primary objectives of price and financial stability.
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Access to Cash consultation
July 2021
Positive Money’s response to HM Treasury’s consultation on Access to Cash, which asked respondents to put forward views on the government’s legislative proposals for protecting cash access, and ran from 1 July to 23 September 2021. The consultation publication and accompanying impact assessment are available here.
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New Forms of Digital Money
June 2021
Positive Money’s response to the Bank of England’s “New Forms of Digital Money” discussion paper. The original paper, including the questions for discussion, can be found on the Bank of England’s website here.
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UK regulatory approach to cryptoassets and stablecoins
March 2021
Our response to HM Treasury’s consultation on the UK’s regulatory approach to cryptoassets and stablecoins. We recommend a regulatory convergence between stable tokens, e-money and bank deposits to ensure a level playing field of high standards to protect financial stability and users.
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Quantitative Easing
February 2021
Positive Money Director Fran Boait gave oral evidence to the Lords Economic Affairs Committee, arguing that QE has turbocharged inequality by inflating asset prices.
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Future of Financial Services
February 2021
Our response to the Treasury Committee call for evidence.
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Future Regulatory Framework Review
February 2021
Our response to the HMT Consultation on the Future Regulatory Framework.
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Economic Impact of Coronavirus (round 2)
December 2020
Our submission to the Treasury Committee Call for Evidence argues that the government’s reliance on bank loans as a means of emergency support has saddled businesses with unsustainable debt. A state-sponsored investment bank, and a network of regional development banks, to direct lending towards sustainable projects would be a key step towards catalysing a fair, green recovery.
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Financial Services Bill – oral evidence
November 2020
Fran Boait gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee on the Financial Services Bill, alongside Jesse Griffiths (Finance Innovation Lab).
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Call for evidence on Access to Cash
November 2020
Our response to the HM Treasury call for evidence on access to cash. It recommends that the government protects access to cash through a widespread free-to-use ATM network, and ensures the right to pay with it across the economy.
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Post Pandemic Economic Growth
September 2020
Our submission to BEIS argues that the Treasury and the Bank should strengthen regulation of commercial banks and invest in public banking services, and thereby reform the banking sector to better support green and innovative economic activity.
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Life Beyond Covid
August 2020
Our submission to the House of Lords Covid-19 committee argues that social and environmental outcomes must be prioritised over the pursuit of GDP growth.
Submissions from our 2000 supporters who responded to the Committee can also be found here.
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Decarbonisation and Green Finance
August 2020
Our submission to the Treasury Committee inquiry argues that public financial support for the private sector should be contingent on companies agreeing to environmental and social conditions, and that the Bank of England should be given a mandate to support the green transition.
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Greening the post-Covid Recovery
August 2020
Positive Money’s response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s Inquiry argues that the Treasury and the Bank of England must urgently attach sustainability conditions to the bailouts provided to big corporations via their multi-billion Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF).
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APPG on the Green New Deal RESET Inquiry
July 2020
Our submission argues that significant steps must be taken to mobilise both public and private finance towards supporting a fairer and greener recovery.
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Economic impact of coronavirus inquiry
June 2020
We responded to the Treasury Select Committee’s inquiry into the economic impact of coronavirus, setting out how the Treasury and Bank of England’s response to the covid crisis could be improved, and making the case for direct monetary financing of public spending.
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Central Bank Digital Currency: Opportunities, challenges and design
June 2020
We made a formal response to the Bank of England’s first discussion paper on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), making the case for CBDC to be designed to complement cash, and to lay the foundation for a public payments system.
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Corporate QE and the Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF)
April 2020
This briefing, prepared 8 April 2020, outlines why the Bank of England’s corporate quantitative easing programme should exclude fossil fuels, and how big businesses are also being bailed out behind the scenes with public money through the new Covid Corporate Financing Facility.
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Decarbonisation of the UK Economy and Green Finance inquiry
July 2019
We responded to the Treasury Select Committee’s inquiry into the decarbonisation of the UK economy and green finance, setting out the shortcomings of the Treasury’s current strategy and providing recommendations for greening our financial system and closing the green investment gap.
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FCA discussion paper: climate change and green finance
February 2019
We responded to the FCA’s discussion paper on climate change and green finance, arguing that the FCA must work urgently with other regulators to address climate risk across the financial system.
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Consumers’ access to financial services
December 2018
We responded to the Treasury Select Committee’s inquiry into access to financial services for vulnerable consumers, arguing that certain groups will lose out if banks and card companies are successful in restricting the public’s access to cash.
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Cash machines closing at a record rate
November 2018
This policy briefing examines new figures showing that cash machines are closing at a record rate, and proposes that the Payment Systems Regulator take steps to stop the closures.
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Climate risk and monetary policy
November 2018
This policy briefing argues that the Bank’s monetary policy operations are currently failing to take account of the risks posed by climate change, and proposes that climate risk should be incorporated into its collateral framework and asset purchases.
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Access to Cash Review
September 2018
We responded to the Access to Cash Review call for evidence, arguing that there will remain a strong demand for people to use cash, and that the government should give the Payment Systems Regulator the job of protecting people’s access to cash.
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Green reform of the Bank of England
May 2018
This policy briefing argues that the Bank of England could play a pivotal role in raising green investment in the UK, and that reform to its mandate is necessary to empower the Bank to have a beneficial impact on the environment.
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Digital currencies
May 2018
We responded to the Treasury Select Committee’s inquiry into digital currencies, arguing that the Bank of England should introduce a central bank digital currency. Doing so would address some of the problems associated with the decline of cash, make the payments system more resilient and could promote competition and innovation in payments and current accounts.
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Impact and effectiveness of monetary policy
April 2017
We responded to the Treasury Select Committee’s inquiry into the impact and effectiveness of post-2008 monetary policy, arguing that quantitative easing has worsened wealth inequality and contributed to the unaffordability of housing. We made the case for fairer and more sustainable monetary policy tools.
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