A new and exciting concept has been launched in Luxembourg, a social enterprise with a cooperative structure based on a unique goal of "Actively Helping People with Their Socio-Economic Affairs & Lives both coming out of COVID-19 and beyond".

Having retired from the world of banking & IT consultancy, Clive MUNN (Acib) has now conceived MUNNFTSE International Investment Holdings (Luxembourg) Sarl — currently under formation — which goes many steps further than the previous concept of MFTSE Affairs S.A., back in 2016 which also had the aim of promoting socio economics, including via the FEM (Finance Eco Money) website now resurrected at https://munnftse.eu/. Whether before its time or not, Luxembourg was not quite ready then for such a socio-economic approach to business and finance. So now we have: My Ultimate Nature Nurturing Finance To Socio Economic life and affairs.

Clive talked with Chronicle.lu and explained:

"We know it has been hard to imagine, until today, with so many new cases & strains still surging around the world, but we also know there will be a time, soon, when, aided by vaccination, the COVID-19 pandemic will be behind us.

Just close your eyes for 5 minutes says Clive; join the “World of Learning”, Imagine What Could Be and “Never Stop Inspiring”. It is safe to assume that society will now be changed forever, given how disruptive the virus has been to virtually every part of our lives around the world. Of course, we still have a long way to go before life truly gets back to “Normal”, whatever that is.

However, all MUNNFTSE planning and management is based around an ethos that is first and for mostly emphasising the importance of sound investment for all which, we believe, must always be Diversified; Eco-Logical; Sustainable; Tax Optimal; Income Generating; New &, most importantly, Sharing & caring — our "DESTINS" (Destinies) in fact. Of course, this must be regularly reviewed, lived and massaged, at the same time as being controlled by our internal and where appropriate, out sourced, Audit, Communications, Insurance, Policy & Procedures, Compliance, KYC and Legal teams.”

Secondly, Clive who is surrounded by a larger group of like-minded professionals than before is optimistic that the vaccines will bring an end to the pandemic, at some point in the near future. We see now in the UK that, as at 11 January 2021, 2.6 million of the most vulnerable people in the UK have already been vaccinated and that a large majority in the UK will be covered by the autumn of this year (a bit faster than Brexit!!).

What the “World of Change” looks like after this terrible wake-up call, we believe entails a more determined focus on Getting Closer to Nature, aided by Embracing Fully the New Digital Revolution. Many of the digitisation trends we have seen, especially in the areas of Online Learning, Telemedicine & Health

& Well Being and, in particular, remote Co-Working, will become a more and more essential and inevitable part of our lives" he added.

Already MUNNFTSE have created a “World of Action” with a number of projects underway, mainly based on Co-Working, Living, Gardening, Leisure & Car Sharing concepts as well as property management. “Life is Work” and “Work is Life” as we say. In fact, the MUNNFTSE & FEM Group of Companies already have some 12 projects underway managed by 12 Ecological & Social Transition based Consultants. The first is indeed a Cooperative integrated community with Co-living, Working, Studying, Gardening, Leisure, Car Pooling and Sharing project in Leudelange. Plans include potential projects on Place de Paris, in Esch-sur-Alzette and two projects in Samoëns in France. It is also planned that the Head Office will be either in the Rue des Bains or Station areas of the International City of Luxembourg. We intend, at this stage, to seek help from the “Ville” and/or government sources and may even try to create a new House of Co-operatives. The operational part of the business/group is housed in MUNNFTSE Life (Luxembourg) Scop, a coopertive company which takes a form well know and established across Europe.

Our Consultants intend to continue assisting and promoting, especially start-up organisations and those who fully endorse our overall philosophy. There is a partnership page on our website where businesses can exchange their logo with ours in a co-operative, free way (Like freely available software). The idea is, of course, to increase SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) i.e. coming first or near the top in, for example, Google searches but it will also become a New Directory for Like Minded People and Businesses.

They say that “Together is Better” and we believe that, in this way, we can really move now to change things for everyone, bringing an end to the pure version of financial capitalism which disgusts so many of us, at all ages. Finance (sharing resources), Business, Journalism and everything only for Good with only ethical projects and articles designed to help and serve one and other in order to eliminate greed, the terrible enemy of the poor and underprivileged. Providing beautiful services and accommodation at a fair price, not an ever ballooning unsustainable bubble like the current stock exchange or property markets. 

So www.MUNNFTSE.eu and their team, look forward to meeting and exchanging ideas with you. At their site you can choose to join and blog or participate in their community at different levels. Alternatively perhaps you would like to participate in their exciting new cooperative by buying a share at only €10. This would, of course, not only enable you to share your ideas with the community but also to benefit from future group dividends and all the other benefits associated with humanitarian co-operatives”.

The MUNNFTSE & FEM Group of Companies also support ALN the Association Luxembourg-Nepal Asbl charity which helps to reduce poverty in Nepal. https://aln-luxembourg-nepal.org/

Identity theft refers to the situation in which an individual steals your personal information with the intention of committing fraud. Some ways in which this information can be fraudulently applied are through loan applications, tax returns or health related services. Moreover, such actions may ruin your credit rating and even more importantly, they can be costly and time consuming to repair. It follows that keeping your identity secure, especially when you are browsing the web is highly important. Even more importantly, you should educate your children on maintaining online privacy as well, as in the opposite case, identity could be stolen from them and they might enter their adulthood with serious problems to deal with. When identity is stolen from children, the consequences can be even worse than when it is stolen from adults, as it usually takes time for such thefts to be discovered, while children and their parents usually don’t pay to much attention to the child’s credit rating. When the child becomes an adult and starts paying attention, it is often already too late to have any significant impact upon what happened.

According to United States government, there are several distinctive categories of identity theft. Namely, those are child ID theft, which has been described above, tax ID theft, which refers to a situation where the perpetrator gets a hold of victims’ social security number in order to file misleading tax return, medical ID theft, which serves the thief to fraudulently debit your health insure provider, senior ID theft, which is quite self-explanatory and refers to the ID theft from our senior citizens, which are especially vulnerable consumer group in that respect and social ID theft, where the perpetrator accesses and abuses your personal information like pictures, name and other, in order to create a social media account and possibly commit damage to your reputation. It follows that no matter which consumer group you belong to, you’re probably at risk of identity theft. We recommend that you don’t worry about it too much, as it is something which is difficult to influence, however, there are some precautions which you can take, in order to keep your identity as safe as possible.

The United States government gives a few recommendations on preventing identity theft, i.e., on keeping your identity secure. Most of them are quite is to implement and we recommend that you start with those. Now let us list the ways in keeping your identity secure. You should keep your social security number safe at all time. Unless you urgently need it, don’t carry it around with you and only hand it to an authorised person when there is no other possibility. It is important that you never give out your personal information over the telephone or the internet, especially if you don’t know/trust the person/company who is on the other side. For example, if you need to pay for something over the phone, rather ask the person to give you their bank account information so you can transfer the money, than giving them your personal information over the phone, as even a company you trust can sometimes make a mistake and hire a wrong type of person, which might abuse your information. When you are withdrawing cash from ATM, giving out personal information at the bank or discussing your health issues with your nurse, always pay attention to people who might be listening in to your conversation. Don’t leave your mail box unattended for days, if you plan to go on a holiday or business trip, ask the post office to hold your mail. Regularly pay attention to any potential changes in your bank account. With the accessibility of online banking and other services which some banks offer, like SMS notification of all bank transfers and withdrawals, this shouldn’t be too big of a deal. If your bank charges for such services, remember that 1-10€/month (my bank charges 1€, I don’t know about charges of others) is a small charge in comparison to having your bank account emptied. Shred paper with personal information before throwing it into the bin. There is a low likelihood that someone is going to go through the trash in order to get a hold of your personal information, but you can never know. Have your smart devices (computers, telephones, iPads, etc.) secured with complex passwords and change those passwords on a regular basis. Whenever possible, your passwords should include big letters, small letters, alphanumeric characters, etc. The more complex the better. Also secure your network with firewalls and anti-virus software. Usually you can find free versions of high quality software online. We use Avast. Remember, taking at least some of the steps to secure yourself is better than taking none of them!

Sometimes, no matter how many precautions we take, our identity gets stolen anyway and in such cases it is important to deal with it as quickly and efficiently as possible. The first thing you need to do is report the incident to the responsible authorities. You can start with the police and they will advise you where to go next. Once you report the crime, you will get a confirmation, which can help you resolve issues with banks, creditors and other institutions you might have fallen out of favour with. If your identity has been stolen on a long-term basis, you can also report it to human rights watch, if your medical ID has been stolen you should report it to medical care fraud office, if tax identity was stolen you should report it to your national tax office, etc.

Recently, law enforcement agencies have noticed a new trend within the identity theft area, which they refer to as synthetic identity theft. In contrast to predominant identity theft style, where the perpetrator steals all the personal information of a person in order to build a fresh identity, synthetic identity theft refers to an instance, where the thief pinches parts of information from different individuals, in order to create an entirely new persona, e.g., a person might steal the social security number of one person, tax ID from another and medical ID from the third person, in order to unify all of them into a single fictitious individual. Because such a scheme is not related to one single individual, it is much more difficult to identify and even more difficult to prevent. It is important to note that children are especially vulnerable to this type of fraud. The only way to deal with synthetic identity theft is to continuously monitor what is happening with your accounts and identity where it matters. If you discover you’ve been a victim, report the incident immediately.

As you’ve been able to observe, there are many distinctive types of identity theft and unfortunately, they are quite common. Thankfully there are many precautions you can take in order to avoid it. If you are interested in protecting your identity online, you could also look up BitBank, which is a company, which specializes in securing your personal information on the world wide web. If you wish to explore more on the topic, we encourage you to browse through other related articles on our website. Lastly, it needs to be restated that you shouldn’t worry about the issue too much, as it is commonly related to sheer luck. Stay lucky J

Healthy Global competition is at the heart of efficient, open and resilient world economies and financial systems. When markets are highly and fairly competitive, firms compete with each other to provide industry wide products and services that are better value, higher quality or more innovative than their competitors. Highly competitive markets are marked by easy entry and unhindered exit. 

‘Money makes the world go round’ but never get carried away with acquiring personal wealth to the exclusion of sharing and helping one and other.

EUROPEAN MICROFINANCE WEEK 2015 (#emw2015) FOCUSES ON FINANCIAL INCLUSION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

World leaders in Paris, joined 45,000 others -- from civil society, businesses, media and more -- to urge Heads of State and Governments to forge a global agreement on climate change.

Luxembourg Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna, was in Paris with a delegation of professionals of the financial sector on the occasion of a seminar for bankers and fund managers held by LFF.

This was a good start but should it take still another 2 years!! Having eneterd into force in 2007, the initial version of the Directive on Markets in Financial Instruments (MiFID 1) imposed special rules on investment, aimed to better protect investors and offer them more transparent information. The second draft of the Directive (MiFID 2), passed in 2014 but not to be implemented until 2017, aims to address areas that remain opaque. This review applies to all financial instruments. So the directive will revolutionise the whole value chain, including design and marketing.