Financial Services Compensation Scheme

• They can stand by while private businesses collapse and see the resulting loss of jobs and revenue.
• Or they can step in and use public money to prop up these firms.
• The UK boasts the second-largest collection of Nobel laureates and four of the world’s top-20 universities.

Financial woes

• The most recent data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency for the financial year ending in 2022 shows that (excluding pension adjustments, which can skew accounts for particular years) 24% of UK universities reported a deficit.
• The outgoing vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, Sir Chris Husbands, recently suggested that calls to increase fee levels could be perceived as being tone deaf.
• Of the brand names that collapsed during the 2008 global financial crisis, few will remember the Heritable Bank.
• The government, via the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, paid compensation to Heritable’s customers and, while some of these monies were recouped, the upfront costs were significant and the endgame did not see all of the cost recovered.

Consequences for students

• Despite a potential merger under consideration in Australia, there is little history of mergers between universities in the UK.
• Almost inevitably, a series of messy class action lawsuits would result, with students seeking recompense for fees paid, perhaps over multiple years, that did not result in the qualification advertised.
• Future students might become more interested in the annual financial reports of a prospective university than its traditional prospectus.

Pulling down communities

• This could range from housing, hospitality and retail being starved of income, to these and many other sectors suffering a shortage of a part-time, flexible workers.
• Somewhere between £0.5bn and £1bn is a reasonable estimate of the amount attributable to any one university.
• The university sector is not immune to the kind of industrial or technological revolutions that have swept through other industries.
• Some of our policymakers and regulators might regard a university failure as an indication that the market is working.

• The first ever official Manchester United digital collectible will be gifted to fans by a Tezos-based platform as the Club launches a new Web3 community designed to educate, reward and unite its global fan base through digital and real-world experiences.
• These digital collectibles are a set of unique digital assets, commonly referred to as Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs.
• The content associated with Manchester United Digital Collectibles is governed by terms and conditions which will be made available in due course.
• Manchester United Digital Collectibles are not currently regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK and are not covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme;
  2. the value of Manchester United Digital Collectibles is variable and can go down as well as up;
  3. tax may be payable on any profits made on the sale of Manchester United Digital Collectibles; and
  4. for those Digital Collectibles which require purchase, the decision to purchase Manchester United Digital Collectibles requires careful thought and consideration.

• Four-fifths of respondents have adopted new technological solutions to manage Covid-19 related risk over the past two years.
• Half of agents said a rise in internal corporate travel, to bring remote workers together, will create recovery opportunities, while 45% said emerging corporate travel markets are important for growth.
• Most are reporting an increase of not more than 30% but there's a notable 14% with an increase of more than 50%.
• However, companies are also turning their attention to sustainability as one of the key personalization priorities for corporate travel.
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• The "Sustainability Growth Opportunities in Full-Service Carriers and Low-Cost Carriers" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
• LCCs take cost as a major factor in sustainability; as they work with low margins, they cannot increase cost to achieve sustainability.
• As a result, they look for other means to achieve sustainable operations; for example, the introduction of fuel-efficient aircraft.
• In addition, single-use plastic has been on the hit list of almost all airlines, thanks to changing government policies for single-use plastic.