The government has bolstered some of the support systems it introduced recently for businesses in the Principality.
“The government’s objective is to do everything it can to relieve the economic impact of the health crisis as much as possible,” it said in a statement released on Thursday 9th April.
Responding to the “expectations of traders, artisans and businesses experiencing cash flow difficulties,” the Prince’s Government has already enforced guarantees for any credits requested from banks. In the latest measure, there is the possibility for the grace period of these loans to be extended, with an interest subsidy provided by the State.
In terms of direct financial aid, on 3rd April the government established the Extraordinary Minimum Income (RME), with a lump sum of €1,800, intended, under certain conditions, for self-employed people with a professional activity in their name in the Principality.
Now, it has also created Aid to Small Companies (APS), for the same lump sum of €1,800.
“These are two exceptional subsidy measures, the collection of which does not prevent beneficiaries from having recourse to the Monégasque Guarantee Fund, approaching their credit institution,” said the government.
Monaco has introduced a raft of financial measures since the beginning of the crisis in an effort to “preserve the economic fabric of Monaco and to face the economic and social challenges of the Principality.”
The details of these various measures are available on the website: https://en.service-public-entreprises.gouv.mc/Covid-19/Covid-19-practical-information/Assistance-to-businesses/General-information
Read more: €280 million to cover Monaco’s workers
As applied behavioural finance specialists, the team at Panthera Solutions in Monaco look at the current “crisis as opportunity” revival during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic through their lense. Never let a crisis go to waste – a truism which has become popular again in recent weeks.
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Officials, experts, coaches and the like are telling us what to do in addition to social distancing: stay calm and use the crisis as an opportunity. This is easier said than done. “The only way a person can change is if they change the story they tell themselves about themselves.” This classic quote from the founding father of archetypical psychology points to the following: for us to change our behaviour lastingly, certain conditions need to be met.
Our recent research has produced insights on the glorification of change. There is an industry waiting for you to tell you how to eat, sleep, think and decide, in short, how to live your life. “Be gloriously agile, embrace change and ongoingly self-optimise” they say. No matter how good-willing their advice is, they tend to run short on meeting the required conditions for us to change.
They underestimate what’s called our “mental immune system”, which protects us from too fast, unintended behavioural change. This system is responsible for making behavioural change an exception. Biologically, we can change our cognitive routines until old age thanks to what´s called the neuroplasticity of our brain. The saying that “you cannot teach an old dog new tricks” is wrong. That´s not the bottle neck.
But what are those conditions and how to meet them to achieve behavioural change? In this article, we invert the question and clarify which learning environments will NOT make you achieve that change. No doubt, the question of how to change our behaviour to step up to the current challenge is of relevance. Individual inabilities and organisational insufficiencies become unavoidably visible during times of crises. Knowing ‘how not to do’ it is as important as ‘knowing how to’ do it. Let´s take a look.
Passive and active forms of learning
The learning environment for directed behavioural change can be separated between passive and active forms of learning. The illustration below summarises the relevant realm of literature.
Main takeaway: the more tailored an active learning environment for an individual, the better directed change can be facilitated. Passive forms of learning generate little to no impact. In other words, listening to a podcast, watching a video, and answering questions during an online seminar are nice to have moments of passive learning. They raise awareness, but they don´t change our behaviour. The literature knows about a wide knowing-doing gap between the awareness of a matter and related action. Examples of nice-to-have moments of passive learning:
Listening to podcasts, keynotes, webinars, video lectures or panel discussions
Participating in seminars, roundtables or online courses
Using pattern recognition software or virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies for learning
Passive learning naivety
It would mark a naïve understanding of life, the complexity of cognitive processes and the ambiguity of the civilisation we built to think that seminars, podcasts, online courses and alike achieve directed behavioural change.
Against academic evidence, those providers glorify behavioural change as scalable exercise that is necessary to undertake and easy to achieve. Those offerings resonate well in board rooms with a check-list mentality, while trading short-term compliance in exchange for innovative specialisation. When measuring the empowerment effects of those approaches, an assessment on their claims concludes: they are starting out a tiger but ending up a bedside rug.
For more information on the above, read our white papers on Ambiguity Tolerance Beats Artificial Intelligence and The Knowing-Doing Gap in Behavioral Finance. In our next article we will outline how to make directed behavioural change likely to happen. Stay tuned.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Markus Schuller and his team at Panthera Solutions and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Monaco Life.
Banking giant Barclays has announced the launch of a £100 million package in an effort to help those most affected by the Covid-19 epidemic.
The association, called the Barclays Foundation, will split the £100 million earmarked for the programme in half. £50 million has been committed to charities and organisations, the other half is set up as an employee donation matching scenario.
The associations benefitting from the generous donation will go directly to charities helping the most vulnerable during the health crisis. The lion’s share will go to UK-based organisations, but some will be made available to help out in places such as India, the United States and other countries where Barclays has a presence.
The main focus of the monies will be on the elderly and those most susceptible to the virus, as well as supporting health care and other key workers who are tirelessly helping the sick and people in need.
The second £50 million is headed for a donation matching programme. The bank is promising £1 for every £1 pound donated by employees to charities of their choosing, so long as they are amongst those working in the fight against the impact of the virus.
The pledges have already started coming in and include contributions by several senior executives, such as Nigel Higgins, chair of Barclays PLC, Jes Staley, chief executive of Barclays Group, and Tushar Morzaria, the group finance director, who have already pledged a third of their salaries over a six month period.
“As a bank we have been doing all we can to look after our customers, clients, and colleagues through this crisis, made possible by tens of thousands of amazing and dedicated Barclays people around the world who have been doing their utmost to keep our services running, and support the economy,” said Mr Staley about the launch of the package.
“We want to do more to back the communities in which we live and work, and to provide help to those who have been hardest hit by the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
“That’s why we’ve launched this community aid package, which we hope will make a positive difference, working with charity partners here in the UK and around the world to deliver help where it’s needed most.
As lockdown continues, the fire brigade of Monaco is taking additional steps to ensure the rules of confinement are respected, notably by integrating a drone as part of its public safety repertoire.
Drones are becoming used more than as fun toys for the nerdy set. Increasingly, and especially now in this confinement period, they are also tools to be used to deliver medicine, food, disinfectant sprays, information and as public security devices.
The small size and easy manoeuvrability makes them ideal for such tasks and Monaco has climbed on the bandwagon to put them to work.
Last weekend, members of the fire brigade flew a drone over the streets of the Principality on the lookout for people who were potentially risking their health and the health of others by not restricting their movements. Parks, beaches and gardens were under particular surveillance as these pleasant spots are the most likely places those not adhering to lockdown rules congregate.
While public safety officials work under the assumption that people are following the regulations, this second line of defence is an additional deterrent for those who may have itchy feet.
Though they are being used to stop wayward behaviour, they are not being used for entrapment purposes. As drones make a distinctive noise, the public will know when one is in the vicinity and if they are perhaps not doing what they ought, the drone will serve as a reminder that rules are in place for a reason.
Currently, it is the fire brigade who pilot and maintain the drone, but in future, it will be the police who handle this task.
The introduction of drones as a method of policing has been met with mixed feelings. Some believe that once the Pandora’s box is opened, there is no going back and that these devices could be used against the public in a “big brother” sort of way.
The knowledge one is being constantly watched will certainly discourage unwanted behaviours, but it will also limit freedoms. People may think twice before joining in on a cause unpopular with the government or taking part in strikes for fear of retribution.
It could also cause high levels of anxiety for some, especially those who are already living in marginalised states, putting psychological pressure on fragile individuals.
For now, though, the drones are merely tools for those looking after our safety during this crisis and are instruments used for positive outcomes.
As an aside, the Public Security forces would like to remind residents that they and the drone will be out in full force over this holiday weekend. Clearly, the temptation to visit family for Easter will be there for many and the government strongly advises against it. People will be fined if caught without authorisation, and the hit to the pocketbook, as well as the possibility of infecting loved ones, is simply not worth the risk.
The Assembly has unanimously re-elected Stéphane Valeri as President of the National Council, with Brigitte Boccone-Pagès remaining as Vice-President.
In fact, the elections, held during Monday’s spring session, saw the reappointment of all the councillors who were present. Only Pierre Bardy, José Badia and Michèle Dittlot were absent from the proceedings.
“Before returning to the reasons for this new special session and the context in which we are holding it, I would like to express to you, my dear colleagues, to you all, to each and every one of you, my most sincere thanks for your unanimous vote, in the sense of national unity that we have implemented together,” said Mr Valeri after his re-election.
Balthazar Seydoux retained his seat for Finances and the National Economy, Christophe Robino the CISAD, Thomas Brezzo the Legislation and José Badia the External Relations. Special commissions with Marc Mourou for Education, Youth and Sports, Franck Lobono for Housing, Nathalie Amoratti-Blanc for Women and Family Rights, Daniel Boeri for Culture and Heritage, of which Michèle Dittlot remains vice-president, while Guillaume Rose keeps the Environment and Quality of life department. Finally, Fabrice Notari continued as chairman of the monitoring committee for negotiations with the European Union, Franck Julien of that of digital development and Jean-Louis Grinda (Monegasque Union) for monitoring the Constitutional Reserve Fund and the modernisation of public accounts.
Two additional commissions were created, that for the modification of the rules of procedure which aims to bring into conformity the recommendations of GRECO, of which Thomas Brezzo is president, and another on the analysis of the Covid-19 crisis with Jacques Rit as chairman.
The mood remained serious as the council president reminded everyone that harmony is the best way forward in these trying times.
“This National Council was natural, necessary and I would even say essential to face, united in the National Council, the serious crisis that we are going through,” said Mr Valeri. “Given the magnitude of this ordeal for our country, it was logical and decisive that the elected officials overcome political divisions, thinking only of the interests of the country.”
Mr Valeri also paid tribute to Max Brousse, former dean of the National Council, who passed away in December, recounting his career and telling stories of his own personal memories from his life.
The ZSL is calling for urgent investment in animal research to prevent future pandemics which could have a much higher fatality rate than Covid-19.
The Zoological Society of London (ZSL), an international conservation charity, launched the appeal on Thursday 9th April, saying it is impossible to prevent future virus spill-over from animals to humans without fully understanding diseases in wildlife populations and how wildlife and people interact.
“One of the tragedies of the current pandemic is that it was both predictable and avoidable,” says Dominic Jermey, ZSL Director General. “Because of human behaviour we have seen SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika and now Covid-19 emerging as major public health threats from wildlife in recent years. How many more warnings do we need?” ZSL’s Professor of Wildlife Epidemiology Andrew Cunningham. Photo courtesy: ZSL
In 2013, ZSL’s Professor of Wildlife Epidemiology Andrew Cunningham co-authored a paper identifying 137 bat viruses. The study found that almost half of those viruses – 61 – were capable of infecting people.
Data obtained so far indicates that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is from a species of bat. The initial progress of the virus is difficult to trace and several other animals – most notably pangolins – have been suggested as intermediary hosts that could have transferred SARS-CoV-2 between bats and humans, although there remains insufficient evidence to support these claims.
And while authorities have yet to identify patient zero, the human outbreak most likely began at a wildlife market in the city of Wuhan in China.
“Our researchers investigate which infections circulate naturally, and under what conditions they might jump to become diseases in other species – including humans,” James Wren, ZSL’s Executive Vice President of Global Resources, told Monaco Life. “We need significant investment in preventative wildlife health research, so we can understand more of the risk factors for zoonotic virus spill-over and we can take steps to prevent it happening in the first place without adversely affecting wild animals in which the viruses occur naturally.”
Currently, Covid-19 has an estimated case fatality rate of between 1 and 3%. But there are other bat viruses that are far more lethal.
“Ebola, for example, kills around 50% of those infected and Nipah virus around 60%, rising to 100% in some outbreaks. Both viruses originate from bats,” said Professor Cunningham.
“Despite repeated warnings there is still very little research funding available,” said Mr Jermey. “I am therefore calling for significant, long-term investment in wildlife health research.”
To support ZSL’s appeal, click here: donate.zsl.org/support
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