Learning the friendly way

If you’re in the process of applying for a passport chances are strong that you already know the importance of needing one. Whether you’re in a terrible hurry because you forgot to check the expiry date before booking your trip or maybe lost your passport ahead of an urgent cross-border meeting, we’ve got you covered. The UK offers a service that allows applicants to fast-track their application. 

Find everything you need to know about the process below, including the fees involved. And why might we, a fintech platform, be informing you about fast-tracking passports? Because we’re in the business of travel. With our world-friendly app that allows users to seamlessly switch between currencies as they swipe their cards around the world, we understand not every process is this simple. Now that we’ve covered that, let’s get into why you’re really here. 

How to fast-track your passport application

Getting a passport in the UK can sometimes be a lengthy process, but luckily there are options available to speed things up. Normally, it can take up to 10 weeks to receive a new passport through the standard application process. While it may be quicker in some cases, it's always best to be prepared for a wait.

The one-week fast-track option

The first option is the 1 week Fast Track service. This service allows you to renew an adult or child passport, replace a lost or stolen passport, or update your details. You can book an appointment for this service up to 3 weeks in advance and will need a debit or credit card.

How to apply

To apply for the 1 week Fast Track service, follow these steps:

1. Visit your local Post Office branch to obtain an application form (these are not available online).

2. Book your fast-track passport appointment online.

3. Pay the fee.

4. Take your completed application form and the required supporting documents to your appointment. There is a booklet accompanying the application form that provides a list of the necessary documents.

5. Once you have completed these steps, your new passport will be delivered to your home address within a week of your appointment. It's important to note that someone needs to be present to sign for the passport upon delivery.

The costs*

The cost for the 1 week Fast Track service is £155 for an adult passport and £126 for a child passport.

The same-day fast-track option 

If you need your passport even faster, there is also the Online Premium service. With this service, you can collect your new passport on the same day as your appointment. However, please note that this service is only available for adult passport renewals issued after 31 December 2001. 

If you have an adult passport issued before this date, you will need to use the one-week fast-track service or the standard application process.

How to apply

To use the Online Premium service, you can simply apply and book an appointment online. The earliest appointment you can get is 2 days after applying.

The cost*

The cost of this service is £193.50 for an adult passport. 

Who can use these services?

It's important to know if you are eligible for these fast-track passport services. If you are applying for your very first UK passport, unfortunately, you won't be able to use either of the fast-track services (unless applying for a child's first-time passport in which case you can use the one-week fast-track option). For everything else, you will have to go through the standard application process instead.

In conclusion

Remember, it's always best to plan ahead and apply for your passport in advance to avoid any last-minute stress and government regulation curveballs. However, if you do find yourself in need of a passport urgently, these fast-track services can be a lifesaver.

If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, don't hesitate to reach out to the appropriate passport office or visit their website for more information (listed below). They will be able to provide you with the most up-to-date details and guidance regarding the fast-track process.

*Please note that the fees were correct at the time of writing and are subject to change. Check the website page listed below to find the relevant information.

References:

• GOV.UK - Passport application service
• GOV.UK - 1 week Fast Track service
• GOV.UK - Online Premium service

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Did you know that there are five different ways we express our love through money? Below we break down the original five love languages and then explain how these can be integrated into a financial setting. Knowledge is power, after all.

The original five love languages

The original five love languages were first introduced by Dr. Gary Chapman in his book "The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts" offering insight into how we convey our love and how we hope to receive it. The five love languages are:

Words of affirmation

Expressing love and appreciation through verbal or written compliments, praise, and kind words.

Quality time

Showing love by giving undivided attention and spending meaningful quality time together.

Receiving gifts

Demonstrating love through thoughtful and meaningful gifts, usually involves around both giving and receiving gifts.

Acts of service

Expressing love by performing acts of kindness and service for the other person.

Physical touch

Showing affection and love through physical touch, such as hugs, kisses, and holding hands.

These love languages help individuals understand how they prefer to give and receive love. The book also states that recognizing and speaking each other's love languages can strengthen relationships.

What are the financial love languages?

Taking the original pillars, we’ve created five money love languages to give you an idea of how you financially show up in relationships (family, love or otherwise). Whether you share a flat with your brother, a business with a friend, or a joint account with a partner, everyone will be able to relate to these financial love languages. Afterall, managing money in a positive light is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship.

The five financial love languages

There’s value in being attuned to your own patterns, and to those of the ones you love. By recognising your partner's money love language you might get a better objective of how to create more harmony in the relationship by understanding what drives them to spend money. Without further adieu, let’s get into the five money love languages.

Open communication

While there are few topics less pleasant to talk about than money, having open and honest communication when it comes to the benjamins is not only valuable but essential. Having the skill, or having honed the skill should we say, to speak about financial matters with a loved one is an accolade, and for some, the most natural money love language. These chats will likely make you feel empowered and more connected to those around you, making it easier to be on the same page.

Acts of service: money edition

While the original acts of service encompass doing things that make the lives of those you love a little easier, in this context acts of service relate to money-related tasks such as taxes or budgeting. Having someone do your taxes as an act of love might be a bit ambitious, so let’s look at alternatives. It could be organising the holiday budget or creating an action plan to get your friend out of debt, or simply fixing something for you in order to save you money.

Love in savings

While it doesn’t sound like the sexiest option, planning for the future and having financial security is an invaluable act of love. Whether through investments, retirement plans, or even an emergency fund, what doesn’t say “I love you” if not “let’s make a financial decision to grow old together.” Some people's love language is expressing affection through providing, so why not let them put their planning skills and diligence to the test and shower you with their love? It might even help you reach your financial goals that much faster.

Experiencing something together

This person’s money love language is expressing their fondness through experiences and quality time, spending money on taking a trip, going on an exciting date night, or simply a new adventure. Through investing in time and experiences, you are quite simply saying I value spending time with you more than I value monetary gains.

The art of gifting

The last money love language we have for you today centers around gift-giving. Are you someone who likes to shower friends with presents, or love to spoil your significant other with something wonderful? Then this one’s for you. While this shouldn’t ever involve draining your bank account, pouring your love (and money) into an appropriate gift is a great way to show affection. Remember, it’s often the thought that counts rather than the price tag.

Which is your money love language?

Which of these do you most resonate with? Sometimes by identifying these intrinsic needs, we are able to better understand not only ourselves but our expectations of others. Whatever your financial love language might be, be sure to pour the greatest amount of love into your own finances and steadily work toward reaching your financial goals. 

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So you decided to go deeper into the fundamentals of investing and learn what an APY is. You've come to the right place, let's get you started with this perplexing "APY" term.

What Is APY?

In conventional finance, a savings account frequently offers both a low-interest rate and an annual percentage yield (APY). Let's look at what they are and what they mean.

• The Annual Percentage Yield (APY) is the annual return from the principal and accumulated interest on investments or savings, expressed as a percentage.
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• The simple interest rate is the amount earned on the original deposit. 

Assume an account at a bank offers a yearly interest rate of 5%. If someone deposits €2,000 into the account, it will be worth €2,100 after a year with the 5% yearly interest rate.                                           

The Difference Between Interest Rate, APY and APR

The APY takes into account the impact of compounding, whereas the interest rate does not. The APY is the projected rate of return earned annually on a deposit after taking compound interest into account.

Compounding interest is the interest that a person accrues from their initial deposit, as well as the interest they earn from their original investment (or in other words, the initial deposit amount plus the interest generated).

The terms APY and APR are frequently used interchangeably, although they represent two different things. These words are sometimes confused due to their close resemblance. However, APY and APR aren't the same things.

The APR (annual percentage rate) is a formula that determines how much interest you'll pay when borrowing money and is the rate of return earned if your funds are invested in an interest-bearing account. 

When a person takes out a loan, their lender sets an APR that varies based on the loan. APRs are either fixed or fluctuating depending on the type of loan the user requires. However, the APR is a rather basic interest rate and does not take compounding into account, unlike APY. 

How Is APY Calculated?

APY represents your rate of return, also known as the amount of earnings or profit you can make. Of course, your ultimate earnings will vary depending on how long you keep your assets invested while the holding period will influence how much you will earn. 

APY measures the rate of the annual return earned on any amount of money or investment after taking into account compounding interest.

The following is the formula for calculating APY:

APY = (1 + p/n)ⁿ − 1

Where:

p = periodic rate of return (or annual APR)

n = number of compounding periods each year
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Bear in mind that an APY can be calculated in a variety of ways depending on the provider.

The three core questions to ask yourself before investing are:

• What do you aim to achieve from each investment?
• How much money can you safely invest?
• How much risk are you prepared to take?

Establishing the answers early on will help you determine which investment avenues are best suited to your needs. For instance, investing for retirement will require a more steady and low-risk approach, while looking to make high profits will require a more high-risk approach. 

Below is a list of other factors to consider:

INFLATION

Inflation is the rate at which the value of a currency decreases. Always ensure your return on investment is higher than the inflation rate otherwise your investment will lose value over time. 

RISK

Managing risk is an important element of investing. Higher returns typically involve higher risk, ensuring that your strategies align with what you are comfortable with is a must. 

LIQUIDITY

Liquidity indicates how quickly an asset can be sold. For investments made using capital that you might require in the short term, you will want to ensure that you invest in a market that has high liquidity. For example, the Bitcoin market is highly liquid while a smaller altcoin will likely be harder to sell. 

DIVERSIFICATION

Diversifying your investments helps to manage risk and spread rewards. Similar to “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”, diversification ensures that should one coin underperform the impact is greatly reduced. Try to include a range of coins in your portfolio. 

TAX

Last but not least, ensure that you are aware of the tax implications of your investment, as tax laws vary from country to country. The responsibility lies with each individual to establish what these are and adhere to them accordingly. 

The DeFi scene has exploded in recent years, with a number of successful protocols contributing to the rising volume and liquidity (Uniswap, PancakeSwap, and SushiSwap to name a few). While these protocols have entirely democratized trading in the crypto space, there are still some risks associated with getting involved. 

If you have experience in DeFi trading you’ve likely come across this term. Impermanent loss refers to losses made as a result of the price changes of the digital assets from when the liquidity provider deposited them into the liquidity pool to now. Below we break down how impermanent loss happens and how to manage the risk. 

How does impermanent loss happen?

Impermanent loss is when the price of the digital asset changes from the time you deposited it, providing liquidity to a liquidity pool, to the time you withdrew it. The bigger this change, the bigger the loss (essentially less dollar value at the time of withdrawal). There are of course ways to mitigate impermanent loss.

Liquidity providers' exposure to impermanent loss is decreased when trading in pools with assets that have smaller price ranges, like stablecoins (a stable asset) and wrapped versions of coins for example. In these cases, liquidity providers can provide liquidity with a lower risk of impermanent loss.

In some cases, impermanent loss can also be counteracted by trading fees. Liquidity pools exposed to a high risk of impermanent loss can still be profitable thanks to lucrative trading fees. 

For example, Uniswap offers liquidity providers 0.3% on every trade, so if the pool has a high trading volume, liquidity providers can still make money even if exposed to impermanent loss. This will depend on the protocol, deposited assets, specific pool, and wider market conditions. 

What does impermanent loss looks like for liquidity providers in liquidity pools?

Here is an example of what impermanent loss might look like for a liquidity provider trading on automated market makers (AMM).

Say John finds an automated market maker that requires a pair of digital assets equating to the same value. For the sake of this example, say 1 ETH is equivalent to 1,000 USDT, which he deposits in a liquidity pool. The total value of his deposit, therefore, sits at $2,000. 

Other liquidity providers have contributed a combined offering of 10 ETH and 10,000 USDT into the liquidity pool, meaning that John holds a 10% share of the overall liquidity pool. 

Let's say that the price of ETH rises to 4,000 USDT. During this time, arbitrage traders will contribute USDT to the liquidity pool and remove ETH until the ratio reflects the price increase. Note that AMMs don't have order books. Instead, the price of assets is determined by the ratio between them in the liquidity pool, meaning that while the liquidity remains constant, the ratio of assets in it changes. 

In this case, if the price of ETH is now worth 4,000 USDT then the arbitrage traders will work to ensure that the liquidity pool now holds 5 ETH and 20,000 USDT. The liquidity pool's total liquidity is now worth $40,000.

If John decides to withdraw his funds, he's entitled to 10% of the liquidity pool's share based on his initial deposit and the size of the liquidity pool. He, therefore, is entitled to withdraw 0.5 ETH and 2,000 USDT, equating to $4,000 in value. However, if he'd kept the initial 1 ETH and 1,000 USDT this would be worth $5,000 now. 

In this case, John would have made bigger returns had he hodled instead of using the liquidity pool and this is what impermanent loss is all about. 

This example does not incorporate trading fees that John might have earned for providing liquidity to the liquidity pool. In many cases, these fees would cancel out the losses and make the process profitable. Either way, understanding what impermanent loss is, is imperative before providing liquidity in the DeFi space.

A look at impermanent loss vs price increases (excl trading fees)

So, impermanent loss happens when the price of the cryptocurrency assets in the liquidity pool changes. But how much is it exactly? Note that it doesn’t account for fees earned for providing liquidity.

Here is an overview of the impermanent losses incurred due to asset price increases (note that trading fees are not factored in here).  Impermanent loss examples:

1.25x price change = 0.6% loss

1.50x price change = 2.0% loss

1.75x price change = 3.8% loss

2x price change = 5.7% loss

3x price change = 13.4% loss

4x price change = 20.0% loss

5x price change = 25.5% loss

Note that impermanent loss happens whether the price both increases or decreases as it is calculated by the price ratio relative to the time of the initial deposit into the liquidity pool. Unfortunately in these cases, price volatility leads liquidity providers to lose money.

The risks associated with becoming a liquidity provider

Realistically, impermanent loss isn't the best name. The losses are known as "impermanent" because they only become evident when you withdraw your coins from the liquidity pool. However, the "temporary loss" then becomes pretty permanent. Although the fees might be able to compensate for those losses, it does seem like a somewhat deceptive title.

When you put cryptocurrency assets into an AMM, be cautious. Some liquidity pools are far more vulnerable to fleeting losses than others, as we've discussed above. As a general rule, the more volatile the assets in the liquidity pool are, the greater your chance of being exposed to impermanent loss. It's also preferable to start by depositing a little bit of money in a liquidity pool to see the returns before exposing a lump sum. 

Another thing to keep in mind is to look for more established, tried-and-true AMMs. It's fairly simple to fork an existing AMM and make a few modifications thanks to DeFi. However, this might introduce bugs that lock your funds in the liquidity pool indefinitely. If a liquidity pool promises exceptionally high returns, there's more than likely a tradeoff taking place and there's likely to be much higher risk associated. Be sure to understand the ins and outs of any liquidity pool before making any deposits.

Coined in 2014, hyperbitcoinisation is the voluntary transition from an inferior currency to a superior one, referring to Bitcoin becoming the primary currency in an area. As was the case with El Salvador integrating Bitcoin into its financial service sector in 2021, the world is slowly progressing to a more inclusive space for cryptocurrencies, inching closer to the prospect of hyperbitcoinisation.

In this article, we explore this concept and what is contributing to its progress in the financial industry.

What is hyperbitcoinisation?

There are three core ideas behind the definition of hyperbitcoinisation. The first relates to a gradual transition from an inferior currency to a superior one, while the second alludes to a tipping point where fiat currencies are no longer sustainable and are abandoned for the use of cryptocurrencies. The final definition sees hyperbitcoinisation as the swift and irreversible adoption of Bitcoin as the world's primary monetary reserve. 

In conclusion, hyperbitcoinisation is Bitcoin-induced currency demonetization, it's intended not to disrupt the traditional currency markets, but rather to be used alongside them. It's the language of the Bitcoin maximalist, one who sees Bitcoin as the answer to everything (unit of account, store of value and medium of exchange). 

Hyperbitcoinisation would require the price to stabilize, providing a more stable economy for transactions to take place. It would also require stronger regulation in the space to ensure the protection of the people using it. While the decentralized nature of Bitcoin is often a drawing point for investors, it will require an element of regulation in order to become a legal tender and considered to be sound money.

The positive factors pointing toward hyperbitcoinization

In order for hyperbitcoinisation to take effect a number of things need to occur. For starters, Bitcoin would need to be adopted by a strong network of institutions, main street businesses, merchants, public and private companies, ETFs, central banks, governments and regular investors. 

From an operating perspective, the nodes on the Bitcoin network would need to increase substantially. Currently, there are roughly 14,000 nodes around the world with the main clusters in Germany, France, the United States, and the Netherlands. In order for hyperbitcoinisation to take full effect, the network would need to expand in both product numbers and globalisation. 

There are currently an estimated 400,000 daily Bitcoin users and over 100 million people holding Bitcoin. While these numbers are impressive, they represent only a small fraction of the world's population. As Bitcoin gradually moves through from the Early Adopters to Early Majority stages in the technology adoption scale, in order for hyperbitcoinisation to take full effect we would need to have transitioned to the Late Majority and Laggards segments. This would indicate that societal adoption has peaked and stabilised. 

On the note of societal adoption, it is estimated that collectively around the world countries hold over 250,000 BTC, while public and private companies own 414,000 BTC, and ETFs over 800,000 BTC. This indicates that Bitcoin adoption is creeping into government and company holdings as well as traditional investment vehicles. 

While there is much to be achieved, these factors all clearly indicate that the ball is in motion. 

_{The negative factors contributing to hyperbitcoinization}

The flip side of the coin shows which negative factors contribute to hyperbitcoinisation, namely central bank digital currencies (CBDC) and inflation. 

CBDCs provide a strong current in the flow toward global crypto adoption. While CBDCs are not decentralized or true to the origins of cryptocurrencies, they operate in the same way and will drive populations to become familiar with digital versions of cash. 

As more people become used to the concept, it is likely that they will incorporate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies into their daily habits as these, at their core, are more similar to cash than the CBDC alternative. They are also less monitored and offer a greater opportunity for financial freedom. 

Inflation on the other hand has already played a large role in the adoption of cryptocurrencies. Following the inflation-inducing stimulus implemented by governments during the Covid-19 pandemic, many investors and businesses turned to Bitcoin to protect their capital. By the end of 2021, countries around the world were experiencing the highest inflation rates in decades. 

As people lose faith in their fiat currencies and turn to cryptocurrencies, as witnessed by the incredible gains seen across the entire crypto market, this only fuels the road to hyperbitcoinisation. 

In Conclusion

Monetary and economic transitions take years to be properly implemented, however, if the last two years are any indication of what's to come, hyperbitcoinisation just possibly could happen in our lifetime. While there are many, many factors that need to take place before it's even a remote possibility, the groundwork already established indicates that we're on the right path.