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Personal loans can help in a crunch. But read this before you apply

Figuring out how to cover expenses right now has gotten a lot harder for millions of people who are earning less money because of the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Can you pay the rent on May 1? Here’s what to do if you can’t

What happens when your employer cuts your pay?

More small business loans are on the way. Here’s what you need to know

While some lenders are offering low interest relief loans, others are tightening credit requirements for borrowers.
Here’s what you need to know about taking out a personal loan during this crisis and whether or not one makes sense for you.

    What is a personal loan?

    An unsecured personal loan is money borrowed from a bank, credit union or online lender that can be used for anything. The money is paid back in installments over time, usually with a fixed interest rate.
    While many experts would caution against personal loans, which often come with high interest rates and fees, they could make sense in an emergency situation.
    “Ideally, I’d hope people would use relief programs before taking on additional debt,” said Justin Pritchard, a certified financial planner at Approach Financial, in Montrose, Colorado. “But if you absolutely need to borrow, a personal loan is not the worst way to go.”
    Since the loan is unsecured, you don’t need to pledge collateral, which helps you avoid putting your home or other valuable assets at risk, Pritchard said. “Plus, you’re not raiding your retirement savings and pulling money out of accounts like a 401(k).”
    The fixed interest rate on most personal loans also allows you to know exactly how much you are paying each month and when you should pay off the debt, he said, so that is helpful when compared to credit cards, which often have variable rates.
    But interest rates on personal loans can be very high as well, he warned.
    “Some personal loan rates go above 30%, so you’re not necessarily getting a great deal,” he said. “Plus, there may be origination fees that add to your total borrowing cost, and you don’t get a break on those if you pay off the loan early.”

    What it takes to get a loan

    While various lenders will offer loans to those with credit scores ranging from bad to excellent, it is hard to find a lender that will issue a loan without a demonstrated ability to pay it back.
    “Lenders look for the borrower’s ability to repay that loan,” said Elisabeth Kozack, managing director for lending at Marcus by Goldman Sachs. “Lenders want to verify the source of income you have. It could be employer income or it could be military income, retirement income, benefit income.”
    Your credit score and your past payment history will also factor into your loan offer.
    When shopping for loans, she recommends determining the amount you need and what kind of monthly payments you want to make. And consider the interest rate together with overall benefits like lower fees or flexibility with payment dates.
    “The interest rate generally will be higher for longer-term loans and lower for shorter-term loans,” she said.

    Explore your options

    Think about a loan holistically, inclusive of fees and interest. An origination fee isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you can get a lower rate and spend less on interest plus fees over the life of the loan.
    “If you pay an origination fee, be sure to account for that in the amount you request,” said Pritchard. “Lenders might reduce your loan proceeds to cover origination fees.”
    He recommends getting quotes from at least three different lenders. A diverse sample would include a local bank, a credit union and an online lender.
    “Credit unions, with their community focus, might be most willing to work with you if your finances are less-than-ideal,” he said.
    If you have explored your options and are deciding between a personal loan or credit cards, check with your bank or credit union to see if they offer an economic relief loan, said Luis F. Rosa, certified financial planner at Build a Better Financial Future in Las Vegas.
      These loans have more favorable terms and are being offered specifically in reaction to the coronavirus crisis. Navy Federal Credit Union, for example, is offering a relief loan to members for between $250 and $5,000 at 6% APR with terms of up to 24 months. Sioux Falls Credit Union is offering a loan of up to $6,000 with 0% APR for six months with a 90-day payment deferral to members who have experienced a loss of income.
      “You have to take into consideration the fees and the interest rate once the 0% introductory APR ends,” said Rosa, “but if it’s a short-term fix, this might be a good option.”

      Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/success/personal-loan-coronavirus/index.html

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      Nintendo reveals 160,000 accounts were breached

      New York (CNN Business)Nintendo revealed on Friday that 160,000 accounts were breached since the beginning of April, by hackers using others’ Nintendo Network IDs without permission. The company announced users will no longer need to use these IDs to log into their accounts, and that passwords on accounts that may have been breached will be reset.

      In addition to logging in to potentially play other users’ games, the hackers were also able to see individuals’ date of birth, country or region and email addresses. They could also access payment services linked to these accounts, including PayPal accounts or credit cards to buy items on Nintendo’s platform.
      “We sincerely apologize to our customers and related parties for any inconvenience and concern. In the future, we will make further efforts to strengthen security and ensure safety so that similar events do not occur,” said Nintendo in an announcement originally written in Japanese.
        A Nintendo Network ID is a unique username and password used mainly for older Nintendo 3DS and Wii U consoles. On the newer Nintendo Switch, users don’t have to register a Nintendo Network ID and can simply create an account using an email address, although it was possible to link the two.
          Nintendo encouraged customers to check their purchase history for any unauthorized transactions and then request a refund. Credit card information wasn’t exposed, however, according to Nintendo.
          The company is emailing affected users, urging them to change their passwords. Anyone who used to use a Nintendo Network ID to login should now use their Nintendo account email address instead. For an extra layer of security, the company is also asking people to set up two-factor authentication, adding a second method of verification such as linking to another app that will generate a code for each login.

          Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/24/tech/nintendo-accounts-hacked/index.html

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          Decrypted: Space hacking, iPhone vulnerability, Zooms security boom

          Security startups to the rescue.

          As we continue to ride out the pandemic, security experts are closely monitoring the surge of coronavirus-related cyber threats. Just this week, Google’s Threat Analysis Group, its elite threat hunting unit, says that while the overall number of threats remains largely the same, opportunistic hackers are retooling their efforts to piggyback on coronavirus.

          Some startups are downsizing and laying off staff, but several cybersecurity startups are faring better, thanks to an uptick in demand for security protections. As the world continues to pivot toward working from home, it has blown up key cybersecurity verticals in ways we never expected. To wit, identity startups are needed more than ever to make sure only remote employees are getting access to corporate systems.

          Can the startups take on the giants at their own game?

          THE BIG PICTURE

          Another payments processor drops the security ball

          For the third time this year, a payments processor has admitted to a security lapse. First it was Cornerstone, then it was nCourt. This time it’s Paay, a New York-based card payment processor startup that left a database on the internet unprotected and without a password. Worse, the data was storing full, plaintext credit card numbers.

          Anyone who knew where to look could have accessed the data. Luckily, a security researcher found it and reported it to TechCrunch. We alerted the company; it quickly took the data offline, but Paay denied that the data stored full credit card numbers. We even sent the co-founder a portion of the data showing card numbers stored in plaintext, but he did not respond to our follow-up.

          Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/26/decrypted-satellite-hack-iphone-flaw-zoom/

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          Security News This Week: Zoom Upgrades Encryption Keys to What It Promised All Along

          It was another week of social distancing or quarantine for most of the world, but Google published findings that it has seen 12 government-backed hacking groups undeterred by the pandemic and, in fact, trying to take advantage of those conditions for intelligence-gathering. Another report found that China, for one, has been busy during the pandemic hacking Uighurs’ iPhones in a recent months-long campaign.

          We broke down how Apple and Google are using aggregate smartphone location data to visualize social distancing trends. And in an exclusive interview with WIRED, Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray warned that domestic terrorism is a growing threat in the United States.

          On top of all the other digital threats, researchers emphasized this week that so-called "zero-click" hacks that don't require any interaction from users to initiate may be more prevalent and varied than most people realize. Such attacks are difficult to detect with current tools.

          And there's more. Every Saturday we round up the security and privacy stories that we didn’t break or report on in depth but think you should know about. Click on the headlines to read them, and stay safe out there.

          Under Pressure, Zoom Launches Round of Security Upgrades

          On Wednesday, the video conferencing service Zoom announced a number of small but needed security improvements. As Zoom usage has increased during the pandemic, so has scrutiny on the service's security and privacy offerings. This week's announcement of incremental improvements is part of a 90-day plan the company announced to overhaul its practices. One change is that Zoom will now offer AES 256 encryption on all meetings, meaning data will be encrypted with a 256-bit key. Zoom previously used AES 128, a reasonable option, but a controversial one in Zoom's case, because the company claimed in documentation and marketing materials that it used AES 256 all along.

          More Than 267 Million Facebook Profiles Available on the Dark Web for Just $600

          Facebook data from more then 267 million profiles is being sold on criminal dark web forums for £500, or about $618. The information doesn't include passwords, but does include details like users' full names, phone numbers, and Facebook IDs. Though such information can't be used to break into the accounts directly, it can fuel digital scams like phishing. Most of the trove seems to be the same as data found by researcher Bob Diachenko in an exposed cloud repository last month. Even after that bucket was taken down, though, a copy of the information plus an addition 42 million records popped up in a different repository.

          Rash of Nintendo Account Breaches Rages On

          A growing number of Nintendo users over the past few weeks had watched fraudsters take control of their accounts, and in many cases use saved credit cards or linked PayPal accounts to buy Nintendo games or currency for the popular game Fortnite. At the beginning of April, Nintendo encouraged users to turn on two-factor authentication to protect their accounts, but it had been unclear how hackers were breaking in. On Friday, the company confirmed that hackers had gained unauthorized access to accounts and announced it was discontinuing users' ability to log into their Nintendo Accounts using Nintendo Network IDs, from older Wii U and 3DS systems. Nintendo also says it will contact affected users about resetting passwords. On its US customer support page, the company writes, "While we continue to investigate, we would like to reassure users that there is currently no evidence pointing toward a breach of Nintendo’s databases, servers or services."

          Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/security-news-roundup-zoom-upgrades-encryption-keys/

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          Stripe adds card issuing, localized card networks and expanded approvals tool

          At a time when more transactions than ever are happening online, payments behemoth Stripe is announcing three new features to continue expanding its reach.

          The company today announced that it will now offer card issuing services directly to businesses to let them in turn make credit cards for customers tailored to specific purposes. Alongside that, it’s going to expand the number of accepted local, large card networks to cut down some of the steps it takes to make transactions in international markets. And finally, it’s launching a “revenue optimization” feature that essentially will use Stripe’s AI algorithms to reassess and approve more flagged transactions that might have otherwise been rejected in the past.

          Together the three features underscore how Stripe is continuing to scale up with more services around its core payment processing APIs, a significant step in the wake of last week announcing its biggest fundraise to date: $600 million at a $36 billion valuation.

          The rollouts of the new products are specifically coming at a time when Stripe has seen a big boost in usage among some (but not all) of its customers, said John Collison, Stripe’s co-founder and president, in an interview. Instacart, which is providing grocery delivery at a time when many are living under stay-at-home orders, has seen transactions up by 300% in recent weeks. Another newer customer, Zoom, is also seeing business boom. Amazon, Stripe’s behemoth customer that Collison would not discuss in any specific terms except to confirm it’s a close partner, is also seeing extremely heavy usage.

          But other Stripe users — for example, many of its sea of small business users — are seeing huge pressures, while still others, faced with no physical business, are just starting to approach e-commerce in earnest for the first time. Stripe’s idea is that the launches today can help it address all of these scenarios.

          “What we’re seeing in the COVID-19 world is that the impact is not minor,” said Collison. “Online has always been steadily taking a share from offline, but now many [projected] years of that migration are happening in the space of a few weeks.”

          Stripe is among those companies that have been very mum about when they might go public — a state of affairs that only become more set in recent times, given how the IPO market has all but dried up in the midst of a health pandemic and economic slump. That has meant very little transparency about how Stripe is run, whether it’s profitable and how much revenues it makes.

          But Stripe did note last week that it had some $2 billion in cash and cash reserves, which at least speaks to a level of financial stability. And another hint of efficiency might be gleaned from today’s product news.

          While these three new services don’t necessarily sound like they are connected to each other, what they have underpinning them is that they are all building on top of tech and services that Stripe has previously rolled out. This speaks to how, even as the company now handles some 250 million API requests daily, it’s keeping some lean practices in place in terms of how it invests and maximises engineering and business development resources.

          The card issuing service, for example, is built on a card service that Stripe launched last year. Originally aimed at businesses to provide their employees with credit cards — for example to better manage their own work-related expenses, or to make transactions on behalf of the business — now businesses can use the card issuing platform to build out aspects of its customer-facing services.

          For example, Stripe noted that the first customer, Zipcar, will now be placing credit cards in each of its vehicles, which drivers can use to fuel up the vehicles (that is, the cards can only be used to buy gas). Another example Collison gave for how these could be implemented would be in a food delivery service, for example for a Postmates delivery person to use the card to pay for the meal that a customer has already paid Postmates to pick up and deliver to them.

          Collison noted that while other startups like Marqeta have built big businesses around innovative card issuing services, “this is the first time it’s being issued on a self-serving basis,” meaning companies that want to use these cards can now set this up more quickly as a “programmatic card” experience, akin to self-serve, programmatic ads online.

          It seems also to be good news for investors. “Stripe Issuing is a big step forward,” said Alex Rampell, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, in a statement. “Not just for the millions of businesses running on Stripe, but for credit cards as a fundamental technology. Businesses can now use an API to create and issue cards exactly when and where they need them, and they can do it in a few clicks, not a few months. As investors, we’re excited by all the potential new companies and business models that will emerge as a result.”

          Meanwhile, the revenue “optimization” engine that Stripe is rolling out is built on the same machine learning algorithms that it originally built for Radar, its fraud prevention tool that originally launched in 2016 and was extended to larger enterprises in 2018. This makes a lot of sense, since oftentimes the reason transactions get rejected is because of the suspicion of fraud. Why it’s taken four years to extend that to improve how transactions are approved or rejected is not entirely clear, but Stripe estimates that it could enable a further $2.5 billion in transactions annually.

          One reason why the revenue optimization may have taken some time to roll out was because while Stripe offers a very seamless, simple API for users, it’s doing a lot of complex work behind the scenes knitting together a lot of very fragmented payment flows between card issuers, banks, businesses, customers and more in order to make transactions possible.

          The third product announcement speaks to how Stripe is simplifying a bit more of that. Now, it’s able to provide direct links into six big card networks — Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB and China Union Pay, which effectively covers the major card networks in North and Latin America, Southeast Asia and Europe. Previously, Stripe would have had to work with third parties to integrate acceptance of all of these networks in different regions, which would have cut into Stripe’s own margins and also given it less flexibility in terms of how it could handle the transaction data.

          Launching the revenue optimization by being able to apply machine learning to the transaction data is one example of where and how it might be able to apply more innovative processes from now on.

          While Stripe is mainly focused today on how to serve its wider customer base and to just help business continue to keep running, Collison noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a measurable impact on Stripe beyond just boosts in business for some of its customers.

          The whole company has been working remotely for weeks, including its development team, making for challenging times in building and rolling out services.

          And Stripe, along with others, is also in the early stages of piloting how it will play a role in issuing small business loans as part of the CARES Act, he said.

          In addition to that, he noted that there has been an emergence of more medical and telehealth services using Stripe for payments.

          Before now, many of those use cases had been blocked by the banks, he said, for reasons of the industries themselves being strictly regulated in terms of what kind of data could get passed across networks and the sensitive nature of the businesses themselves. He said that a lot of that has started to get unblocked in the current climate, and “the growth of telemedicine has been off the charts.”

          Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/23/stripe-adds-card-issuing-localized-card-networks-and-expanded-approvals-tool/

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          Digits launches a free expense monitoring dashboard for small businesses, closes on $22M Series B

          Digits, a fintech startup hailing from the same team that built and sold Crashlytics to Twitter, is officially launching today after two years of development. It’s also announcing a $22 million Series B round of funding led by GV, as it makes its public debut.

          While the company had been fairly quiet about product details while in stealth mode, it’s today unveiling its first product: a visual, machine learning-powered expense monitoring dashboard aimed at startups and small businesses.

          The dashboard, called Digits for Expenses, helps business owners track how their company is spending money, by showing things like spend by category, by identifying vendors and recurring expenses and by offering real-time alerts, among other features.

          Instead of requiring business owners to make a switch from their existing financial solutions, Digits connects with the accounting software, banks, payroll providers, financial packages, sources of revenue and credit cards the business already uses — like Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, Citi, Bank of America or Chase, for example.

          At launch, the list includes more than 9,000 banks, with support for Xero and NetSuite coming soon.

          After setup, Digits will then automatically analyze the company’s spend and visualize it, in real time.

          While visualizations of data may be reminiscent of personal finance startup Mint, Digits’ web-based solution is more technical in nature and offers an expanded analysis of the data on hand. Plus, as a business solution, it has to offer features like security, permissioning and collaborative workflows, which results in a more sophisticated product.

          Digits also uses machine learning technology to predictively categorize transactions as they happen and the software can alert users to anomalies — like suspicious activity or unexpectedly large transactions — in real time. Business owners can use the dashboard to find out things like how quickly expenses are growing, what the cash flow looks like, where costs can be trimmed, what services are being paid for on a recurring basis and more, and can search for transactions.

          The software also supports the ability to comment on transactions, loop in a colleague to ask for clarification about a charge and upload missing receipts. Everything uses HTTPS along with TLS and certificates so data is encrypted between Digit’s services and at rest.

          The original idea for Digits came from a problem that co-founders Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert faced themselves when building Crashlytics. As they explained previously, their focus as entrepreneurs was on solving technical challenges, not on the operational side of running a business.

          Many entrepreneurs also find themselves in this same space. They’re trying to solve a problem or crack a tough engineering puzzle, but instead have to redirect their time and resources to spreadsheets, financial reports, transaction records and other paperwork required to actually run the business.

          “Startups and small businesses today simply don’t have the resources to manage their finances internally. Most of them still settle for spreadsheets, and the lucky ones work on an hourly basis with external accountants,” explains Seibert. “As a result, their accounting itself is seen as a cost-center, and they pay for little beyond the basic monthly financial statements — Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, etc. By the time those statements are delivered — weeks after the end of each month — they’re already out of date,” he said.

          That means things businesses need — like updates, one-off reports and new budgets — can require additional costs and longer wait times, so they get skipped.

          The COVID-19 pandemic has put even more pressure on small businesses, many of which are now struggling to even survive. As a result, Digits has decided to launch the product for free to those who sign up — not a free trial, but actually free. It plans to later charge for additional products and paid upgrades to support its own business.

          Digits is able to make this offer because of its now-expanded venture funding.

          Already, the company had raised $10.5 million in Series A funding in a round led by Benchmark. That round had included a sizable 72 angel investors as well, including founders and CEOs from companies like Box, GitHub, Tinder, Twitch, StitchFix, SoFi and several others — entrepreneurs with an understanding of the problems Digits is aiming to solve.

          Today, Digits is announcing an additional $22 million led by Jessica Verrilli at GV,  who also now joins Digits’ board alongside Benchmark’s Peter Fenton. (Benchmark also participated in the new round).

          “Jeff and Wayne are masterful at creating intuitive, high-utility products from complicated data,” said Verrilli about the GV investment. “I saw this up close with Crashlytics and Twitter, and I’m thrilled to partner with them on Digits as they reimagine financial software for startups,” she added.

          The startup, now a team of 18 and hiring, was already offering its software solution to a group of customers ahead of today’s public launch, who effectively operated as beta testers allowing Digits to refine its product. Digits isn’t able to share its customer names, for the most part. However, it noted that Coda was one of early adopters and provided valuable feedback.

          It also has over 10,000 companies who joined its waitlist over the past two years who are now being let in.

          At the time of its Series A, Digits saw more than $1.5 billion in transaction value flowing across its production systems. That number has since grown to $8 billion.

          The software is free starting today for U.S.-based small businesses. The company plans to add support for international markets later this year.

          Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/23/digits-launches-a-free-expense-monitoring-dashboard-for-small-businesses-closes-on-22m-series-b/

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          Britain’s health service is part of its national psyche. It’s also on life support

          London (CNN)The makeshift poster is displayed proudly in the window of a London home. “We love the NHS” is written in children’s handwriting above a picture of a rainbow. A few doors down the street, another colorful arch is daubed on a bed sheet hanging from a balcony.

          The Covid-19 pandemic has brought the cherished national institution known by its three-letter acronym even further to the center of British life. Chronically underfunded and stretched to its limits even during normal times, the health service has never been under so much pressure. It has also never received more praise, love and gratitude from the public.
          But that support is nothing new. In public opinion surveys, people over and over again identify the NHS as the one thing that makes them most proud to be British, well above the royal family. When London hosted the Olympic Games in 2012, the opening ceremony featured an entire musical number honoring the NHS and its staff, with nurses dancing around children in hospital beds.
            “There is this huge level of deep-rooted affection for the institution and pride in it and what we’re seeing now is that affection being manifested,” Dan Wellings, senior fellow at the King’s Fund, a healthcare think tank, told CNN.
            It’s hard to pinpoint an exact reason for this affection. “It’s not in data or numbers and evidence, it’s feelings and emotions and all the things that people can’t explain very well,” said Laura Duffell‏, a matron at King’s College Hospital London. Duffell‏ works for the NHS and said she “wouldn’t work anywhere else.”
            “It feels like you’re part of a family in all the different hospitals and all the different teams that I’ve worked in, the team spirit is always there.”
            The government is tapping into those feelings to reinforce its strict social distancing measures. That messaging is clear: Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives. The slogan is on every information leaflet the government has printed. It’s even on the lectern from which the country’s top officials — standing in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson who is himself recovering from Covid-19 — deliver their daily updates.
            The NHS is not unique. Many other European countries have publicly funded health systems that provide free medical care for everyone. But none can claim the NHS’s level of appreciation.
            “The NHS is seen as something that we all have in common, something that we need never question, something we don’t need to plan for,” said Cal Flyn, an author and journalist. Flyn collaborated with The Wellcome Collection, a museum and library dedicated to health, on a major project marking the NHS’s 70th anniversary in 2018. “The fact that we don’t need to pay for health insurance, and yet it is always there for us, especially at our lowest moments, makes it very morally unquestionable. It is seen as a force of pure good,” Flyn added.

            The origin story

            The NHS was founded in 1948 as part of a huge national rebuilding effort following World War II. Since then, it has become an integral part of British society and the country’s biggest employer.
            It’s partly its origin story that makes the NHS so important to many.
            “There’s a sort of folk memory of it … people wanted a really big change and the NHS was part of it,” John Appleby, the director of research and chief economist at the health think tank the Nuffield Trust, told CNN.
            Wellings added that the sense of post-war collectivism is still a big part of how people view the NHS. “There are some values that are attached to it which play very strongly to a sense of Britishness: fairness, available to all, it’s equal, it’s primarily funded through taxation and it’s free at the point of need.” The branding is great too. “It’s so clear. The fact that it says ‘national,'” Wellings said.
            The NHS, everyone agrees, is part of Britain’s national psyche.
            The key principle of the service is simple: medical care should be free for everyone. Whether it’s a routine check, chemotherapy or a hospital birth, patients do not need to worry about pulling out their credit cards when getting treated. A few parts, including dentistry, optical care and pharmacy have been privatized over the years, but the bulk of the service is public. Prescription drugs are free, but most people need to pay an prescription charge of £9.15 ($11.45).
            “Virtually everybody contributes to the NHS in some way, there is no special NHS tax, it is not just funded out of income tax, it is funded out of all taxes, so everybody is putting in something, and the deal is, no matter who you are, whether you’re the Queen or me, there’s equal access to the things you need when you need them, and it’s decided not on your income but on your healthcare needs,” Appleby said.

            Funding issues

            After the 2008 financial crash, the government’s tax revenues have suffered, and so did NHS funding. Health think tanks such as the King’s Fund say the NHS is now particularly vulnerable, as under previous Conservative governments, its funding did not match the increasing demand for healthcare. That led to longer waiting times, reduced availability and staffing shortages, according to research by the think tank.
            Attempts at injecting private investment brought short-term gain for long-term pain. One scheme used by Tony’s Blair Labour government to fund big NHS projects using private money cost a fortune: according to Nuffield Trust, by 2049, the NHS will end up repaying £82 billion for just £13 billion worth of such projects.
            Many Brits are acutely aware of the pressures the NHS is facing. When the call came for volunteers to help with the current crisis, nearly 1 million people signed up. There’s also been a huge spike in donations to charities that support the NHS and its staff.
            But not everyone is comfortable with the idea that the NHS should rely on charity. “The response to these fundraisers is a little bit split, depending on one’s politics … if you’re more left wing, you feel there should be no question that this money should come from central government … at the same time, people want to help, and they want to treasure the service and to keep it running, especially in a time of crisis,” Flyn said.
            In the UK, the NHS seems sacred and the resistance to overhauling it in a major way cuts across the British society — most people said they would pay more tax if the NHS needed it, according to the surveys.
            “People would not put up with politicians messing around with the very basics of the NHS,” Appleby said. The promise that Brexit would mean more cash for the NHS was one of the decisive factors in the UK’s referendum on European Union membership in 2016, even as many economists warned that leaving the EU would likely hurt the UK economy and put NHS funding under pressure.
            As the grim reports of death and suffering keep coming in, day in day out, many in the UK are looking to the future, hoping the crisis will bring change to the way the NHS and its staff are treated.
            The huge public support is heartwarming, but it can’t make up for the fact that, according to the British Medical Association, half of doctors working in high-risk areas still don’t have enough protection equipment, and that thousands of nurses working in London can’t afford to pay rent.
              “But perhaps on the other side of the coronavirus it will give them, their unions and so on enough ammunition to campaign for more money. I think there would be a lot of public support for that,” Flyn said.
              Duffell, who is active in the RCN, the nursing union, is less optimistic. “I would love to see the government investing in the National Health Service to the extent it should, but I just don’t think it’s going to happen, I don’t see it changing which is a big big shame.”

              Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/18/uk/nhs-love-affair-uk-intl-gbr/index.html

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              America’s ‘new normal’ will be anything but ordinary

              (CNN)The new normal will be anything but ordinary.

              “You can call it the ‘new normal,'” said Juliette Kayyem, a CNN national security analyst and former assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security. “I call it the ‘now normal’ because I think every day is going to be different.”
              Here’s how life could change as states consider modifying stay-at-home orders and other restrictions:

                Staggered schools days and smaller class sizes

                  How US schools are responding to the coronavirus pandemic

                In California, like many other states that have virtually shut down, the reopening of schools is a priority.
                “We need to get our kids back to school. I need to get my kids back to school,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said with a chuckle on Tuesday.
                It’s too soon to loosen restrictions on schools, Newsom said. When students do return to the classroom, likely in the fall, the educational environment will be dramatically different.
                State officials are consulting unions and administrators about steps such as staggered school schedules,and changes to assemblies, physical education and recess. Increased sanitization efforts and deep cleaning will become standard in schools.
                “We talk about what the new normal looks like. Normal it will not be,” Newsom said.
                Floor plans conducive to physical distancing will be in place.
                “At the end of the initial quarantine period, schools could reopen with daily temperature checks for students and staff, as well as weekly testing, so that any new outbreaks could be rapidly identified and contained,” wrote the authors of paper for the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
                “The risk for a second wave comes in the fall when the kids get back in school,” said George Rutherford, an infectious disease expert at University of California San Francisco.
                “You could have 9th and 10th grades come in the morning and 11th to 12th grades in the afternoon,” said Rutherford, who has worked with San Francisco health officials on the city’s response. “Or half of the students could come Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The other half on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.”
                And some universities across the country are considering the possibility that in-person classes may not resume until 2021.

                Disposable menus and masked servers

                  Meals here can cost $700. Now this restaurant feeds the homeless

                Restaurants will likely cut down the number of seats. Mask-wearing dinerscould be greeted by servers in masks and gloves with disposable menus in their hands.
                New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN, “Restaurants may have to be a lot less crowded to begin. We’ve got to take it slow.”
                And restaurant goers could have their temperatures checked before sitting down.

                Empty stadiums and concert halls

                Barring a vaccine, a pharmaceutical intervention or herd immunity, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said mass gatherings such as concerts and sporting events are unlikely until next year.
                “The prospect of mass gatherings is negligible at best,” Newsom said this week.
                New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the return of such events could be far off.
                “The last thing we should do is gather, you know, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 people in one place,” he said. “That’s, like, the exact opposite of social distancing. We shouldn’t do that until we’re really sure that we’re out of this crisis.”
                New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told CNN Wednesday night that he had spoken with Mets owner Fred Wilpon.
                “I said, ‘Why can’t we talk about a baseball season with nobody in the stands? Why can’t you play the game with the players?'” he said. “Look, it would be good for the country. It would be good for people to have something to watch and do to fight cabin fever. It’s something I’m going to pursue.”
                But Major League Baseball would first have to strike deal with the players union.
                “If you have no one in the stands then the numbers are going to change, the economics are going to change,” Cuomo said. “If Major League Baseball and the players can come to an agreement on how to adjust the economics for that reality … that would be a good thing.”
                President Donald Trump said he misses live sports.
                “We want to get our sports back, so importantly,” Trump said at his coronavirus briefing Tuesday.
                “I’m tired of watching baseball games that are 14 years old, but I haven’t had too much time to watch. I would say maybe I watch one batter and then get back to work.”
                In South Korea, where the number of new coronavirus cases has been dropping, the country’s baseball league is preparing to start its 144-game season in early May, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news.
                Intra-sqaud games, with some players in masks, have been played in empty stadiums in a country where spectators are known for dancing in the stands.
                “There’s actually a picture from summer season of 1918,” Rutherford said, referring to the Spanish flu pandemic more than a century ago. “I think it was the Oakland Oaks, a Pacific Coast League team, and everybody’s wearing masks, including the umpire, the catcher and the batter.”
                Still, baseball in the US may be some time away. Some players have even expressed a willingness to wear masks on the field.
                Rutherford recalled a conversation with an A’s beat writer, who told him: “Have you ever been in a major league dugout after a game? It’s just disgusting. People spit everywhere. Ugh.”
                Or imagine New Orleans without spring and summer festivals.
                New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said she believes the city’s biggest events — French Quarter Festival, JazzFest and Essence Festival — will not happen until next year.

                Tracking of location and other personal information

                In China, authorities are using technology to track healthy people — and those who pose a risk.
                Residents are assigned color-coded QR codes on their phones. The color determines what they’re able to do. In Wuhan, China, where the lockdown has been lifted, residents need to produce a green QR code on their phones to leave their homes.
                To get into places such as restaurants, people need to show a green QR code.
                Now Apple and Google are working together to help US health authorities track exposure to the coronavirus using Bluetooth technology.
                The tech giants could play an important role in fighting the pandemic despite privacy concerns.
                Harvard’s Safra Center said people not in a “high-risk” population could move about freely. Their location on public transport could be tracked on “privacy-protective QR scanning.”
                Additionally, the center’s paper said, thermal scanning devices in public spaces “can help spot outbreaks and support contact tracing” — tracking down sick people, isolating them and then tracing everyone with whom they’ve been in contact and putting those people into quarantine.
                A report by the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank said home isolation can be enforced using GPS tracking on phone apps.
                A plan from the liberal Center for American Progress called for a “trusted, nonprofit organization” to host the medical data — “not private technology companies or the federal government.” The information must be automatically deleted after 45 days.
                Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, said South Korea is using “very aggressive” contact tracing which looks into personal credit cards and phone records and car GPS information.
                “The reality is your credit card company is already using this on you,” he said. “You signed it when you signed the contract that was in the fine print there, and they were using for whatever the heck they wanted to do with it to make money. And your phone is already using it. That’s what all the phone companies do, they track you. And lots of other apps on your phones do also.”

                Changes at airports and limited travel

                Monitoring of international travelers is being recommended by the American Enterprise Institute, which is also urging the public to limit unnecessary travel.
                The Center for American Progress calls for nonessential travel to be prohibited outright during the stay-at-home phase: “State and local governments must use aggregated, anonymized cellular data to assess compliance with stay-at-home orders and determine whether targeted enforcement is necessary.”
                Airline passengers should be required to have the contact tracing app, confirm no proximity to a positive case, and have a temperature check or show documentation of immunity, according to the liberal think tank.
                Dr. Lee Riley, a professor and chair of the Division of Infectious Disease and Vaccinology at University of California, Berkeley, said, “People are discovering that a lot of business trips or small conferences can be actually done virtually. Travel as we’d known it, will definitely decrease, at least for the next two years.”
                Beverage and snack distribution probably won’t change, except for the addition of alcohol wipes.
                Subways, buses and transit stations should limit the number of passengers to 50% capacity, according to the Center for American Progress.

                Face masks may become an everyday accessory

                Cuomo said Wednesday he will sign an executive order requiring New York residents to wear a mask or a mouth/nose covering in public when not social distancing.
                There will be a three-day notice period before the order is enforced, allowing New Yorkers to secure masks or coverings. Cuomo said he was considering a civil penalty for those who break the rule.
                During the initial phase of the reopening, people should be encouraged to wear nonmedical fabric masks in public, according to the American Enterprise Institute. Even people without symptoms.
                “Face masks will be most effective at slowing the spread . . . if they are widely used, because they may help prevent people who are asymptomatically infected from transmitting the disease unknowingly,” the AEI said.
                  Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told CNN that American life will be radically altered until a vaccine is developed.
                  “Things are just going to be different,” he said. “And that’s the sad truth.”

                  Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/us/coronavirus-pandemic-new-normal/index.html

                  Credit Cards

                  College isnt free yet, but Savi raises a $6M Series A to assist student loan borrowers find loan forgiveness

                  The student loan crisis has crescendoed to even worse heights. As universities shut down across the country due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and employment opportunities dim with the rapidly decelerating economy, today’s students and post-grads need better tools than ever to navigate their finances.

                  Unfortunately, student loans in the United States are extraordinarily complicated, with literally hundreds of variations on loan terms, repayment methods and public interest forgiveness options. For borrowers, what are the best ways to minimize their total burden while staying within the rules?

                  Washington, DC-based Savi wants to make student loan borrowers “savvy” to the best options available to them, and now it has even more capital to take on this pressing challenge. The company announced today that it has raised a $6 million Series A led by Nyca Partners, one of the most influential investing firms in the fintech space.

                  Finance startups often have misaligned incentives between users and their own revenue models — a financial health app may make quiet referral revenue by peddling new credit cards and loans, exactly what a user doesn’t need.

                  What makes Savi interesting is that the company was designed from the beginning to make sure that it always placed the interests of its users first. It’s organized as a public benefit corporation and founded by two idealistic founders who came together over improving the outcomes of the nation’s youth.

                  After graduating from Georgetown Law, Aaron Smith founded and spent four years running Young Invincibles, a youth-focused think tank and advocacy organization that was originally created to bring attention to youth issues during the healthcare reform discussions in the early years of the Obama administration. Meanwhile, Savi’s other co-founder, Tobin Van Ostern, worked on youth voter engagement for Obama’s first presidential campaign as the head of Students for Barack Obama before heading to the liberal Center for American Progress.

                  Savi co-founders Tobin Van Ostern and Aaron Smith. Photos courtesy of Savi.

                  Together, they decided to found Savi to bring their progressive mission orientation to helping young people around student debt. The student loan world is “fairly complicated, and while obviously I think there needs to be continued improvement on the policy side, we needed solutions for student loan borrowers right now,” Smith explained. “And so that was sort of the impetus behind Savi — to use technology to create those kind of solutions.”

                  Savi ingests student loan data from users and then begins crunching the numbers to calculate the best options for repayment or forgiveness while taking into account the goals of its users.

                  While student lending is a trillion-dollar-plus market, Savi — owing to its progressive roots — has been particularly focused on offering its platform to users like social workers, teachers and service workers. One of their largest partners is NEA, the largest teachers union in the United States with around 3 million members, and Savi is offered as a benefit to its members.

                  Organizations offer Savi’s student loan assessment tool to their employees and members to help them understand their financial picture. That tool is free for users, but from there, Savi charges a subscription to actively manage a user’s student loans, such as automating the process for filling out paperwork. Users can calculate their savings using Savi before committing to paying a subscription, ensuring that no user pays if Savi can’t help them save money. The company says that the average borrower sees $140 in savings per month and pays a $5-a-month subscription fee.

                  Given the typical employment of its users, Savi has a particular specialty on loan forgiveness, an option that many student loans offer for people in public-interest careers. Such options often have byzantine rules for eligibility though, and so Savi works to ensure that borrowers seeking forgiveness stay within the rules of their loan programs. Currently, the company handles more than 150 forgiveness and repayment options.

                  Where top VCs are investing in fintech

                  Similar to its assessment tools for organizations, Savi launched a new tool around COVID-19 to help people in health professions or who have been laid off as a result of the pandemic to figure out their student loan situations and find new programs for help. “We actually happen to have a pretty disproportionately high number of users that actually work on the COVID crisis,” Van Ostern explained.

                  Startups around managing student loans have been a popular area of investment for VCs. Yesterday, my colleague Alex Wilhelm noted that student loan platform Frank received a $5 million interim strategic round of funding, with edtech giant Chegg taking a board seat. I also covered Summer’s $10 million raise late last year, which, like Savi, is a public benefit corporation focused on minimizing the burden of student loan payments.

                  In addition to Nyca, Savi received funding from AlleyCorp, Temerity Capital and 9Yards Capital, along with Michelle Kang, Catherine Reynolds and Sheila Lirio Marcelo.

                  Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/14/college-isnt-free-yet-but-savi-raises-a-6m-series-a-to-assist-student-loan-borrowers-find-loan-forgiveness/

                  Credit Cards

                  Congress extended unemployment assistance to gig workers. But they’re struggling to access it

                  New York (CNN Business)Meg Atteberry had been gearing up for her work’s busy season.

                  “Right now, there are no new projects … I’m making about 20% of my normal income, which is obviously really difficult,” Atteberry said.
                  The situation has left her scrambling to get financial assistance through the CARES Act lawmakers passed last month, but accessing that aid has proven difficult.
                    “I feel like I’m in a really terrible lottery,” she said. “I want to put food on my table, I want to pay a very large sum of bills.”
                    Across the country, many other freelancers, independent contractors and self-employed people saw their finances take a hit by coronavirus, with lost gigs, fewer projects and canceled speaking events — and now they’re struggling to access government aid.
                    The percentage of workers in “alternative” working arrangements, such as food delivery drivers and other independent contractors, has risen dramatically over the past decade. The CARES Act extends to such workers unemployment benefits for which they are not usually eligible and enables independent contractors and sole proprietors to apply for business aid through the Paycheck Protection Program.
                    But in seeking access to those benefits, some freelancers say they’ve encountered a system that did not seem set up to handle applications for self-employed people. Many states are still working to retool their technology systems to process such workers’ claims, and there are lingering questions about eligibility. In the meantime, workers say they’re worried about when — and if — the money will come through.

                    Waiting to access unemployment

                    Gig workers who file taxes using 1099 forms are typically not eligible for unemployment benefits, so for many it was a relief when lawmakers expanded access to benefits amid the coronavirus pandemic. But applying for and receiving those benefits is still a ways off for most.
                    In Colorado, where Atteberry lives, the state unemployment office has yet to open up applications for self-employed people.
                    “We are still programming our systems to begin accepting claims for workers who are eligible for benefits related to the CARES Act, including those who are self-employed,” the Colorado Department of Labor and Unemployment said in an April 12 statement on its website. “Benefits will be retroactive and eligible claimants will not lose benefits while you wait to file a claim. We appreciate your understanding.”
                    Elsewhere, self-employed workers have been able to file unemployment benefits claims but have faced other challenges.
                    Bradley Madsen, a freelance musician in New Jersey, said he applied for unemployment within 24 hours of the CARES Act passing. Weeks later, he said his application is still listed as “pending.”
                    “They have not moved it forward. When I called, I finally got someone on the phone and they said nothing could be done until it was moved past that,” Madsen said.
                    All of the gigs Madsen had scheduled through the end of May have been canceled because of coronavirus. Now, as his family tries to survive on his wife’s income alone, he’s worried he will have to dip into savings that he’d intended to reinvest in his business.
                    “It’s taken several years to build up that capital to be able to make those investments,” he said. “It’s stuff that I don’t want to touch if I can avoid it, but I don’t know how long I can avoid it.”
                    In California, Stephany Wilkes, a writer and consultant in the textile industry, also created an account on the state’s unemployment site last week, but found the process confusing.
                    Whereas full time workers’ earnings are filed with the state by their employers, Wilkes said that as a self-employed worker, it was difficult to quantify and explain in a small form field just how much of her work had been lost.
                    “There’s no place to communicate: This is the money I would have earned,” Wilkes said, adding that the form still seemed geared toward W2 workers, not freelancers. The California form she filled out, for example, does not ask whether the applicant is self-employed until near the end of the form, after it requests information on previous employers and wages.
                    California says it will take time to build and staff “this complex new program” that “likely rivals” the size of its current unemployment benefits system.
                    In addition to rolling out a new program, many states are likely overwhelmed by the number of unemployment claims they’re receiving. First-time claims for unemployment benefits surged more than 3,000% from early March. About 16.8 million American workers, comprising about 11% of the US labor force, filed initial claims for jobless benefits last month.

                    Other avenues for help

                    Theoretically, self-employed workers could have more access to coronavirus-related financial assistance than other full-time workers who are laid off or furloughed from their jobs. Many are applying for both unemployment benefits and Economic Injury Disaster or Payment Protection Program loans from the Small Business Administration.
                    But accessing those benefits has also proven difficult.
                    Jane Richards, a sole-proprietor public relations consultant in California, sought to apply for SBA aid after losing about 30% of her business amid the pandemic and fearing she’d soon lose more.
                    But she was ineligible to apply at her primary bank, which is only accepting applications from people with business accounts or credit cards, something she hasn’t needed as a freelancer.
                    “I don’t have a payroll, so I haven’t had to think about (having a business account),” Richards said. “It’s just me. But it seems like I’m the exact type of person that this was made to help. I’ve just, at this point, given up. I don’t think I’m going to be able to get it.”
                    There have also been long wait times and overwhelmed systems at the SBA and banks that are facilitating the business aid loan programs.
                    Madsen said he applied for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, and called the SBA a week later to check on the progress of his application. When he got on the line, he found himself in a queue of around 1,900 callers. After nearly an hour and a half of waiting, he finally got someone on the phone.
                    “They said it was processing and they said I would get an email once they had processed it and decided whether I was going to get something or not,” Madsen said. “So, yeah, I’m still sitting here.”
                      In the meantime, workers say they’re spending time trying to understand the various avenues for assistance that could otherwise be used to find new work.
                      “You have to do so much research before you even know if it’s right,” Wilkes said. “Maybe it turns out to be something you don’t need, or that it’s not worth your trouble to apply for. But the amount of reading and research and forms you have to go through before you can even make that choice is hard.”

                      Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/economy/unemployment-gig-workers-challenges/index.html