COVID-19 INSIGHTS: ISSUE 5
🔊Examining the role played by Banks and Financial Services to underpin the Economy
The finances of individuals, households, and businesses has been greatly impacted by COVID-19 and the multiple lockdowns which followed. Consequently, many struggled to manage their finances, including keeping up with loan/mortgage repayments, as a result of a decline in income amid the pandemic.
In order to support households and businesses during the difficult period, the Bank of England (BoE) 🏦 established several forms of support to minimise the pandemic's long-term damage to the economy. This included lowering interest rates to 0.1%, an all-time low, and more funding available to financial service establishments that provided support to households and businesses👨🏽💼🧑🏼💼.
Many of the measures the Bank of England introduced were successful in strengthening the banking and financial sector, however, the physical branches of banks were the most negatively affected📉. Due to the dependence on technology throughout COVID-19 and social contact restrictions, many customers relied on digital banking 💻to manage their money. Therefore, the value of the physical branches was scrutinised which forced bank closures throughout the UK to save costs on unnecessary expensive infrastructure.
So far, we have focused on the pandemic's impact on employment as well as the income of individuals and businesses. Now we take a closer look 🤓at how they were supported by banks and the financial services sector to manage this income and their other finances.
It's great when the state takes care of both the sphere of life and ordinary people. Pay attention to our software.