Finance

In the past month, the Prague Monitor has informed about a number of individual goods’ price increasing. With this trend continuing in almost all aspects of retail, it is time to offer a more complex look at the current economic situation in the Czech Republic. According to Chief Economist of the Czech Banking Association, Jakub Seidler, “Industrial producer prices accelerated in August, mainly due to rising prices of metal and wood products.” Industrial inflation reached 9.3 percent. That is 1.5 percentage points more than in July, while analysts expected a growth of only 8.6 percent. Thus, industrial and agricultural producer prices rose the fastest in August since 1993. The rise in prices manifested mainly in chemicals, metals, paper, but alsoContinue Reading

Throughout the fall of 2021, prices of all baked goods in Czech supermarkets and bakeries are expected to rise at least by a few percentage marks. There are a number of reasons for this trend, mainly the rising cost of flour, transport and energy. The fact that bakers are demanding higher wages, since many other products are also getting more expensive, is at play too. This information was shared by bakers during the annual Days of Bread and the Bread of the Year competition, currently taking place in Pardubice. According to Petr Šedivý, the head commissar of the Bread of the Year competition, “As the price of wheat rises, millers increase the price, which ends up reflected in the priceContinue Reading

Out of the 165 states in total that are included in the research, the Czech Republic takes the 27th position on the list of economically free countries. Last year, the statistics presented somewhat better results for Czechia, which took the 24th place. As the number of participating countries is quite high and the data have to be submitted by each state, the report is usually released with a two-year delay. Thus, the mentioned numbers represent the year 2019. The Index of Economic Freedom has been measured annually since the year 1996. It takes into account five principal indicators: size of government, legal structure and property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade internationally, regulation of credit, labour and business.Continue Reading

If you prefer to pay in stores by swiping the magnetic strip of your bank card through the machine, you will probably have to find a new way to pay pretty soon. One of the main producers of credit and debit cards, Mastercard, is planning to completely stop adding magnetic strips to their cards in the next 10 years. According to the company, the main reason for this is the fact that magnetic strips were added to cards as the first prototype of a faster way to pay. Now, there are the much more secure contactless payments through a microchip, which are harder to abuse or tamper with. Thus, the company views the swiping of a card as an obsoleteContinue Reading

With standard prices now hovering around 34 crowns per liter, petrol in the Czech Republic is the most expensive in years. The price of diesel has lately risen too. This rise in price is caused by elevated prices of oil on the international markets. The price of a barrel of oil now stagnates at around 75$ per barrel. Consequently, the price of fuel for combustion engines in most of the world has risen too, so we are still among the EU nations with the least expensive petrol and diesel, with only Romania and Bulgaria undercutting us in diesel prices. According to economist Štěpán Křeček, these prices should not rise any further. Nevertheless, they will definitely impact the budgets of bothContinue Reading

Revolut has opened its European bank to customers in Czechia. Czech customers who upgrade to Revolut Bank will now have their deposits protected. Prague, 28 July 2021 Revolut, the global financial platform with more than 16 million customers worldwide, has today operationalised its European specialised banking licence in Czechia. Customers in Czechia who upgrade to Revolut Bank for additional services will now have their deposits protected under the deposit guarantee scheme. Customers in Czechia are now able to upgrade to Revolut Bank for additional services from within the app. The upgrade process will only take customers a mere few minutes. To date, Revolut has attracted more than 300,000 customers in Czechia, and the fast growing fintech is confident that depositContinue Reading