Didn’t even know Jeff played basketball, let alone had his own shoe.
Keep it temporary
FCA today confirmed on a call today that it will reopen registration to the Temporary Permissions Regime “later in the year, before the end of the implementation period”. No date as yet but promised. This is good news for those of you still creating your reverse branch solutions. More news as we get it.
Soaking it up
But not necessarily the early summer sunshine. But more evidence that if people have adopted role models during the pandemic crisis, they appear to be the likes of Richard Burton, Billie Holiday and George Best. As this report provides more fascinating insight into global drug consumption in lockdown. It basically boils down to this. Us, the Irish and New Zealanders have been p****d out of our minds almost constantly since March The Danes have excelled themselves with their cannabis intake. We remain altruistic in our support for the Colombian economy. And the Dutch are just off their **** all the time. Plus, towards the end, remarkable insight into how many people really will answer the question “when did you stop beating your husband/wife”?
Interesting slide early on about how well people think their governments have handled the crisis. New Zealand unsurprisingly top with 9 out of ten average. I was close to announcing us as bottom on 4 before I just noticed that Brazil have achieved the remarkable by scoring flat zero. Bolsonomics at work.
Playing Commission
BIPAR participated in the European Commission’s first roundtable meeting with the European financial sector, including consumer and business representatives, to explore how it can develop best practices to support EU citizens and businesses in the framework of the Covid-19 crisis.
The roundtable is part of the dialogue with the European financial sector, which the Commission announced last month at the launch of its new Banking Package to see what practical relief measures can be put in place to alleviate the impact of the coronavirus crisis. The Commission states that the response must be coordinated in order to avoid national fragmentation and to ensure a level playing field.
At the roundtable, the Commission invited consumer and business associations, banking, insurance and non-bank lending associations, and European Supervisory Authorities.
See attached the press release from the Commission.
During the meeting, BIPAR made the following key points:
- Our sector is currently drawing up a “state of affairs”, setting out the lessons that can be learned from the crisis, looking at the immediate needs of clients.
- Intermediaries have stayed very active to serve their clients in these challenging times – not only with regard to their insurance/financial needs, but also informing them with regard to the measures to take for mere “survival” (government initiatives etc).
- Intermediaries believe EIOPA’s 1st April Statement to insurers and intermediaries, urging them to take steps to mitigate the impact of Coronavirus/COVID-19 on consumers, but also indicating that flexibility is needed, to be very useful (see BIPAR email of 1 April)
- Looking to the future, BIPAR has created a working party with experts on pooling, modelling, etc. which is at the disposal of the European institutions and of the sector.
- We are now looking at the most urgent needs of clients, who want to have some insurance (either through insurance or government initiatives / guarantees) in relation to a second wave of lockdowns …and that this issue will come up at renewal of their contracts for insurance .
It is a fair cop. I outsourced production of this section…
Degrees of covidiocy
During a high powered an intense exchange of pandemic experiences with my friends and colleagues at CIAB in Washington (or in fact, all over the place including the Delaware coast) we turned our collective intellect to some extraordinary demonstrations of stupidity amongst the general public. This focussed on the base level of covidiocy – driving miles to hang out far too close to each other on some random beach. This moronic starting point then significantly enhanced by the presence of second level t***s determined to belly flop off cliffs necessitating the arrival of the air ambulance which thus forces everybody to cram even closer together so it can land. But we commended a new standard that surpasses any of this. Rioters in US that choose not to wear a mask. Because not only might a mask protect you and your fellow rioters against contracting Covid-19, it is also, and long has been, a staple component of rioting chic – especially the bandana over the face. But above all this, a mask is a really useful accessory when looting your local shops live on camera if you want, say, to pursue the Shaggy style defence “it wasn’t me”. These people deserve to locked up.
I am off to celebrate the joyous news of the cancellation of the weekend government briefing. Not that I ever watched them. But I thought I ought and didn’t want to. Hasta manana.