The chances are that even if you have absolutely no interest in business or money beyond spending it, you’ve heard of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency, for the uninitiated, is digital money. Rather than relying on physical or fiat cash, traders are now able to exchange bits of code for goods and services. Investors simply need to set up a digital wallet and head to an online exchange to start putting their own cash into bitcoin, Ethereum or otherwise.

Even if you’re not really up on your business or tech jargon, this probably all sounds fairly simple. That’s because, dear reader, it is. Crypto is easy to get into, and trading is instantaneous. There are also next to no fees involved when you pay online. This is appealing to businesses that want to start reaching out to customers on a global basis. Even certain bankers are saying that we’re heading towards a global digital currency. Whether or not this means that bitcoin is going to edge the pound out is another factor.

However, trends suggest that while crypto has never been more popular with the average investor in the UK, businesses still aren’t taking the bait. There’s still talk of bitcoin, for example, being on the edge of going mainstream. Millions of people trade in the money online – so why isn’t it seen as a big enough thing yet?

Big risks and small prizes

If you’ve read any of the media spin on crypto in recent years – bitcoin especially – then you’ll notice that there’s a pattern. To this day, bankers and big businesses seem to be scared of crypto. There are a few good reasons for this, especially when you look at the bigger picture.

Crypto is volatile. Recent news, and any headlines you can search for, show that it’s unpredictable. It spikes highly, and then drops down low again. It also does this regularly. Bitcoin came to the edge of a bubble in 2018 yet seems to have come through the other side. People are still more than willing to trade in the money, meaning that there can’t be too many risks.

However, the currency still isn’t mainstream here because there are a few big players yet to clarify their positions. HM Revenue & Customs has a policy of crypto profits and assets. There is also a vague position in law. However, the central banks and financiers are not keen to suggest that bitcoin, in particular, is on the same level as the pound. That’s because of a lack of centralisation.

Will Libra change everything?

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has spent the past 12 months slowly regaining ground after a tumultuous 2018 by trying to push Project Libra. Project Libra is Facebook’s landmark digital currency. Zuckerberg has clear designs on the project offering up a global currency, one that can be used by everyone, everywhere. Many hope that this will move crypto into the mainstream.

However, seasoned investors have their doubts. That’s because Libra isn’t like other crypto. Unlike bitcoin or Ethereum, it will have central oversight. Crypto, on the whole, is decentralised, which means that there are no middle managers keeping an eye on things. Libra will work on a centralised basis to some degree, which some crypto purists are claiming defeats the whole object of digital money in the first place.

Libra, however, could introduce new audiences to crypto, especially in the UK. Facebook’s core audience now consists of 30-somethings and older. This is a market that may not have come across traditional crypto on their own. Therefore, the first taste that many people could get of digital money will be through Libra. Ask a few crypto investors and you might get a frightened response.

What now?

The reasons for crypto not ‘going mainstream’ are pretty obvious. It’s still an unknown entity. While the benefits are clear, and proven, big businesses and financiers aren’t sure whether or not society can depend on such a volatile asset. That’s understandable. However, with trends showing that more and more of us are getting into the crypto game, it’s making less sense for businesses to hold out.

Until British people educate themselves more on crypto, it’s going to be a fringe benefit. Experts, and trends, suggest that it’s going to explode into the mainstream in just a few years. Can smaller businesses really wait that long? Mainstream or not, crypto is pretty important, and it’s time more of us started sitting up and paying attention to its benefits. For now, you can fumble with the fiat money in your pocket – but you might be dabbling in digital coppers in the future.

Electronically sending money overseas is done more regularly today than it has been before. That’s because there are more reasons than ever to do so, and electronic transfers cut out a lot of unnecessary waiting times. Writing a check or paying for a money order to send overseas is usually not needed for the most part because the ways you can transfer money electronically can reach both regular bank accounts as well as those who don’t have one. And in many cases, your money can be received within a few days or even within minutes. So what do you need to know about sending money electronically?

Understand The Exact Reasons The Person Needs The Money

Why you’re sending the money makes all the difference in how you do it. Are you trying to help a family member who may be involved in an emergency where their savings are depleted and they need money right away? Are you trying to support someone you know in an effort to start a business who needs startup funding? Maybe you’re paying bills for yourself or on behalf of someone else and need to send money to the creditor. All of these are important factors that can affect the way you send money.

Sending Money Electronically Through An E-Check

If you want to send money to someone electronically but don’t want to have a check sent in the mail, an e-check is one way to do it. You simply use an e-check service which can send a PDF file of the check to the recipient’s email instantly. When they receive the e-check, they could print it out to deposit in a bank or mobile deposit it. There could be a few problems with this if your recipient doesn’t have a bank account and wants to cash the check, or if they need it in a different currency than what the check was sent in. But it still may be one way to send checks without the need to wait.

Sending Money Directly From One Bank Account To Another

In some cases, you can send money that’s in your bank account without even needing to write a paper or e-check at all. Some banks allow you to send funds to an external bank account by using the specific account number as well as the external bank’s routing number. Not all of them do transfers from a domestic bank to a foreign bank though unless you do an international wire transfer. An international wire transfer can happen instantly, and it allows for foreign exchange. But it has extremely high fees and should only be used for very large transfers.

Sending Money Through A Third Party Transfer Agency

Sometimes you need a little more flexibility in how you send money electronically, such as wanting more payment options to do it with or allowing it to be picked up in cash. You can send money online abroad through a third party transfer agency where you can use an app or go to an agent location in person to send money. The benefits to using a third party transfer agency include the following:

1. Your choice of using bank accounts, debit cards including prepaid ones, credit cards or         cash to send money

2. Exchange rates are listed upfront and can come with lower fees than regular transfer         services

3. A tracking number can be used to verify your funds have been received or to cancel           the transfer

Sending Money Through A Peer-to-peer Transfer App

There are other kinds of apps known as peer-to-peer payment apps you can setup an account, add funds to it by linking a bank account, and also pay for things or send money using a debit or credit card. There are benefits to using this kind of app such as eliminating even more fees, and transferring funds instantly by simply entering the recipient’s username. The only downside to this way of sending money is that some p2p apps are geographically restricted, and your recipient may not be able to withdraw funds from their account without having a bank account or prepaid debit card.

It’s very simple to send money abroad in theory, but you need to check with your recipient before doing so to make sure they’re able to receive it the way you want to send. Also keep in mind that some transfer services have limits on how much you can send as do some countries based on financial laws.

According to all news sites and front page headlines it will snow in some places due to it being winter.

Also, there will be some headlines attributing snow to climate change, or in other words, the difference in seasons, but don’t let the little terror, “How dare you”, Greta Thumberg, hear about that.

The snow in some areas will be thick and white of colour, which may trigger some activists to call it racist. They may cause a Twitter frenzy, where many people will be banned for disagreeing with the nutcases, because these social networks always agree with the arseholes of the internet.

This year, Britain is set to have another snow in, and no doubt there will be abject chaos across the country once again, because we never seem to learn from the past. The bets are in already, and some are even enticed by the age of gods free spins on offer as well. Certainly, a better proposal than sitting for 24 hours in your car on the M25 waiting to be dug out from the snow.

When it snows it usually means the temperature outside is cold, so there will be further newspaper headlines telling people to stay warm, and to be careful travelling — Duh!. This may seem like common sense to most, but for many, they have to be told yearly about the same old dangers.

The obligatory pictures and videos of people and cats playing in the snow will be a prerequisite for all publications, so get ready for the yearly photographs showing off each region of Britain under the snow.

As for the trains, all it takes is one snowflake to land on a rail, or the ‘wrong type of snow’ and the whole line will be out for days, such is the state of Britain’s Victorian rail network. Be prepared for paragraphs and pictures dedicated to people sleeping in stations, and Christmas holidaymakers stranded at airports due to that white stuff that falls from the sky.

The incredible thing about the mere sniff of snow in Britain is that in Nordic countries, everything seems to function perfectly with heavy snowfall year in year out, yet Britain comes to an abject standstill. In countries like Sweden, they even have darkness for six months of the year for gawds sake, and yet they cope perfectly well, despite being snowed upon as well.

According to British Gas, some of the worst snowy moments occurred in the last century; on January 23, 1947, the snow arrived and did not let up fo 55 days across the nation. Then Britain had the Big Freeze of 1962/63 with temperatures dropping below -20C. In the noughties, 2010 seems to stand out, with snow falling, and temp records the coldest in 100 years, costing UK economy over £1.2 billion a day in lost sales, and sickies.

As more couples choose to carry out their surrogacy in Ukraine, what they brought home is rarely what they expected.

Faced with ever-increasing incidences of infertility, couples are choosing to seek the help of surrogates. A surrogate is a woman who carries the child of another couple, largely because it is unsafe for the mother to carry the child herself.

Due to a plethora of medical maladies that cause a woman to be unable to bear her own children, surrogacy is becoming an ever more common practice. With high profile celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Neil Patrick Harris sharing their surrogacy successes on social media platforms like Instagram, surrogacy is finally becoming normalized in society.

“It wasn’t at all what we were expecting,” says one couple who used the services of Ilaya, one of Ukraine’s premier surrogacy agencies. “Ukraine surrogacy seemed so scary at first. We had never visited the country, and we definitely didn’t speak the language.” The couple openly discusses their journey to parenthood via surrogacy in Ukraine. “In fact, everything was so much easier than we expected it to be.” They say, smiling. “Because we live in Europe, travel costs were minimal. The country itself is absolutely beautiful, and our surrogate was a dream.”

This is just one set of newly minted parents that have achieved their dreams using surrogacy programs offered in Ukraine. “We see so many couples each year,” Ilaya, the company tells us. “This is what drives us to provide the best care possible. Seeing these people come away from the process with joy instead of worry. It’s very obviating.”

While Ilaya is just one of the companies in Ukraine that offer surrogate services to couples in need, they are a shining example of what to expect throughout the process.

How Surrogacy Works

Surrogacy programs in Ukraine work both similarly and differently to surrogacy programs elsewhere in the world. Similarly, they provide the same types of treatments and procedures that would be expected in any other country with advanced medicine.

The surrogacy process involves finding a surrogate who has passed all of the required mental and physical testing. Following this, eggs and sperm are received from the intended parents and combined in a lab setting. Should the intended parents be unable to supply their own materials for the child, donor materials can be acquired.

Once the materials are combined and viable embryos are formed, they can then be implanted into the surrogate mother’s uterus via IVF. This is considered standard practice around the world. Where technically the surrogate is considered a gestational carrier, as opposed to a “surrogate”, because she is not genetically related to the child she will bear.

Prior to the advent of modern medical practices, the surrogate mother was artificially inseminated with the intended father’s sperm. This meant that the surrogate mother supplied the egg and held a genetic connection with the child. Gestational carriers on the other hand, have no genetic link to the child. Choosing a gestational carrier as opposed to a surrogate allows for clearer lines to be drawn regarding parentage and custody.

Where Ukraine Surrogacy Stands Out

Ukraine’s surrogacy programs use gestational carriers in the same way that most other countries do, but they also compensate these brave women for their time. In a process known as “commercial surrogacy” the gestational carrier is allotted a sum of money as reparation for her time and effort. Commercial surrogacy is not legal throughout the world, and most countries offer only “Altruistic surrogacy” in which the gestational carrier isn’t entitled to any type of pay for her efforts.

Alongside of paying these women for carrying the child, Ukraine also has strict guidelines that mandate who is, and who isn’t qualified to accept the position of gestational carrier. Ensuring that desperate woman in desperate situations cannot apply for the job.

Further, Ukraine medical guidelines closely monitor and maintain which medical practices are appropriate for these situations. Allowing for multiple IVF attempts and novel practice like PGD. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, is the science behind ensuring that implanted embryos are of the highest quality and have the greatest chance of success, both for implantation and future health of the child.

The process can help identify genetic abnormalities and health defects that could harm both the gestational carrier and the future child. The country’s laws also outline exactly how the procedures must be carried out, and provide the minimum of standards that must be practised throughout the prenatal experience of the surrogate. Ensuring that continued care throughout the pregnancy is seen to effectively. But Ukraine surrogacy programs and their associated legislation don’t stop at medical procedures.

Laws are in place that protect the surrogates health and the lawful interests of the intended parents. Allowing them to create legally binding contracts that outline the roles and responsibilities of both parties- contracts that must be in place before IVF is carried out. Making it simple for both parents and surrogates to prepare themselves for the journey ahead and know exactly what is expected of them, and what they in turn are allowed to expect.

The Choice of Ukraine Surrogacy

“No one actively chooses surrogacy,” the couple tells us. “You don’t have a choice at this stage. Because of whatever problems you are experiencing, you are excluded from such a vital and incredible part of parenthood. For us, I think that was probably the most difficult part, just knowing that at such a vulnerable time- someone else was fully in charge of our child’s well-being.”

Fertility rates around the world are plummeting, and doctors are struggling to keep up. Despite advances in medical practice, there are still times at which couples have no choice but to take on the bumpy ride of surrogacy. “It is scary, and really emotional. Sometimes it’s a really sad process,” the mother tells us. Despite the “sure-fire” appearance of surrogacy, often times multiple IVF cycles are required before a surrogate successfully becomes pregnant. “Even then, when you get the call that tells you it’s happened, that you’re going to be a parent- it’s the most overwhelmingly joyous thing. Closely followed by a crippling sense of worry.”

The couple says that despite the fact their personal surrogacy journey was largely without any problems, they were still concerned about something crippling up. “You worry constantly about what might happen. Every check-up, every day, you wake up thinking about your child.” But, for this couple, their worries came unanswered. “The whole process was so smooth. Holding [our baby] for the first time was incredible. I had never been that happy in my life.”

The couple says that they continued to worry even after they brought their healthy baby boy home. “You worry about things you’d have no control over. If surrogacy somehow makes your child different. If it makes things different for them.” What they found however, is that despite creating a lifelong friendship with a previously unknown woman, everything else was perfectly normal. “Our son is happy, and he’s healthy, and he’s no different from any other child his age. Except that he has this incredible origin story. He’s a miracle baby, but he’s our miracle baby. Nothing changed that.”