Struggling to tell you what’s coming up next month

Annoyingly for this monthly column, focused exclusively on what is coming up in the financial/economic/political/consumer calendar, I’m about to admit it’s a bit hard to say.

It has been a fervently regular issue in the pandemic. Awards A is set for X and economic update D is published at 09.30 on Y etc etc. Only it isn’t because both have been rearranged because <insert Covid reasons>.

It makes the task of bring you, my dear reader, tricky to say the least.
Lots of organisations have been guilty of moving their dates around and I don’t blame them. The past 18 months have been a minefield for unplanned happenings overtaking carefully laid events.

Case in point is the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which one day decided to switch its economic stats to 7am. It was supposed to be for market reasons while everything went sideways. But dear ONS, I can tell you the change in timing sent us all sideways anyway so thanks for that!

It is in fact now consulting on whether to change the time permanently or bring it back to 9:30am. Late sleepers everywhere have their fingers and toes crossed.
Elsewhere, the UK Government in particular has industrialised uncertainty. Once upon a time you could rely on getting information on what they were doing from the dispatch box in the House of Commons. Not anymore.

Now you need an eagle eye in case Matt Hancock decides to dish out information at an unplanned news conference from Downing Street in the shiny new briefing room. It’s gotten so bad Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the House, admonished ministers for not updating parliament beforehand as they are supposed to be doing.

Boris et al have gone one step further now and started shifting the ‘reopening’ day around, deliberately keeping it vague. Now the reopening which was set for 21 June, is set for 19 July. Although we also have 5 July in our diaries, erm, just in case? Which is it?!

The uncertainty is maddening. Imagine being a business reliant on that day or trying to decide which one it should go for. Or a couple that doesn’t want social distancing at their wedding. What do you do?

It makes me want to start a campaign, to end the 18-month misery of fixed-event date reluctance. We’re all behaving like a bunch of no-show friends who agree to go for a drink but actually really cancel so they can sit at home in their PJs with a glass of Chablis.

Let’s commit to commitment. Stay with the day. If for nothing else, so we can all stop scribbling things out in our diaries, and I can write a column that doesn’t finish up with inadvertent inaccuracies!

With that, here are some dates you should be keeping an eye out for.
On 1 July the government begins its taper of the furlough scheme, which has sustained so many people’s finances since the pandemic began.

The Post Office is running its ‘Save Our Cash Day’ on 9 July – a campaign to raise awareness of ongoing importance of physical cash in people’s everyday lives.
On 12 July FinTech Week London begins, looking at global FinTech themes engaging with some of the City’s biggest influencers.

In that week, on 14 July, I’ll be chairing a FinTech panel with six companies in the space in my capacity as co-editor of Mouthy Money. We’ll be looking at the future of FinTech and discussing the lay of the land post-Covid. Keep an eye out for more on that!

On 15 July is the Pensions Age Awards and a day later on 16 July we have the Investment Week Investment Marketing and Innovation Awards. Plus, the Banking Tech Awards entry deadline closes on 23 July.

Finally, an FCA consultation on DC pension charges ends on 16 July and then another, on consumer duty, ends on 31 July.

Here’s wishing you a gentle and well organised summer from all of us here at MRM and Capital City Media.