Timeline:
T day
It’s a normal Monday morning but across the world, ATMs are reporting errors and financial and news websites are unreachable. Banks report problems with their IT systems which block web access and cash withdrawals. The US and UK government blame Iran and China for a coordinated cyber-attack which also freezes the crypto currency market. Events start to move at a fast pace.
T+24 hours
In the UK and Europe, a three-day bank holiday is announced to protect the financial system. Although back online, cash withdrawals from ATMs are limited and credit cards are frozen. Customers rush to purchase food and goods using the cash they have available.
T+72 hours
The bank holiday is extended to fourteen days to “flatten the curve” and allow the UK government to develop a rescue plan. Prices start to inflate and the UK sterling exchange value fluctuates wildly. Cash is now in short supply. Shops empty of items, many simply close their doors. For those garages still open for business the price of petrol reaches £3/litre. Information on worldwide events is confused and often contradictory. The cyber event narrative seems to be the most likely explanation and is widely accepted by the public.
T+96 hours
Mobile phone networks, cable TV and broadband internet access fails. The government blames an intensified cyber attack from Russia/Iran/China/North Korea which is affecting Internet providers and satellite systems. The UK public loses access to all online bank accounts for a second time. Citizens revert back to the analogue radio for security announcements.
T+120 hours
A state of national emergency is declared in the UK and other countries worldwide in response to the continuing rash of cyber-attacks which the government blames for the chaos in the financial markets as well as the Middle East conflict driving the price of oil to £200/barrel.
In the UK a coalition government of national unity is formed from all the major political parties. A temporary travel lockdown and curfew is announced and police, backed up by army personnel carriers, patrol major metropolitan centres.
Late on Friday night, after approval from the Bank of England, UK banks seize all customer deposits and securities to refinance the system. Over the weekend, the “bail in” as it’s described in the media, is immediately challenged in the courts with an emergency class action lawsuit but is found to be entirely legal. The UK bank insurance scheme (FSCS) collapses due to lack of funds and is suspended. The same situation plays out in Europe and the US. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) fails to cover user deposits.
Under the emergency conditions in both the UK and American local and mid-term elections are deferred and all major sports events and programmes are cancelled.
T+168 hours
Over the next few days, data and mobile networks are slowly brought back online. ATM’s activate but withdrawals are limited to £250 a day. Long queues form at the machines which are quickly drained of cash. Debit and credit cards are still frozen and there is no access to online banking. High street branches remain closed.
June / July
The UK government announces a recovery plan that closely mirrors an approach used by the EU and the USA. The nominal value of the bank deposits will be reflected in a new digital wallet held by the Bank of England and managed through the remaining UK G-SIBs banks. As part of the UN’s Agenda 2030, plans are already well advanced for such an eventuality and the launch date for the digital wallet is set for six months time. Through approved media channels, the public is told that the Bank of England is taking responsibility for lost customer deposits. The move is widely supported by the populace who remain shocked by the loss of access to bank deposits.
After the announcement of widespread bankruptcies in the financial sector, the UK government announces that access to securities held by brokerages and other wealth stores such as bullion banks will remain frozen until legal ownership can be determined.
In an attempt to deter fraud and to ensure an orderly implementation, all UK citizens are required to register for a biometric digital ID. Fortunately, the UK government has been working towards a digital identity system for a number of years based on the biometric passport database.
Social unrest takes hold due to food shortages in certain regions. In the UK, local retailers targeted by shoplifting gangs are forced to close. Larger retailers employ site security teams to keep their doors open. It is hinted that the digital ID may form the basis of a food rationing system, should supply lines continue to be disrupted.
The retail economy continues to run using the devalued currency as cash, precious metal coinage and a crude barter system.
All UK borders are closed. The Royal Navy is tasked to patrol the channel and intercept any vessel with orders to board if ignored. Illegal immigration ceases overnight. The Army openly patrols city centres where there are clashes between migrant groups and local residents. An amnesty for all illegal migrants is announced to operate alongside the roll-out of the biometric digital ID.
In order to restore public order, the new digital ID (DiD) becomes mandatory to enter public buildings, large retail spaces and public transport. Sites introduce biometric scanning to enforce the measure. CCTV systems in urban areas are upgraded to support facial recognition. There is some push back from civil rights groups but the general public is supportive of the measure.
Schools, pubs and restaurants remain closed.
A general travel lockdown is enforced and a UN force is invited into most western nations to support local police. Since fuel is almost impossible to purchase, only essential car journeys are being made. Although there are some brownouts, the UK energy grid and internet remain stable.
Global Events.
The situation in Europe is equally chaotic. National armed forces in Germany and France are ordered onto the street to maintain order.
In the USA, urban unrest fuelled by gun crime is uncontrollable. After the National Guard is overrun in Indianapolis and Chicago, martial law is declared and the federal government calls in a UN peacekeeping force backed by the US military. Congress repeals the 2nd Amendment and an immediate confiscation of assault rifles is ordered. Florida and Texas rescind the order and announce their intention to secede from the Union. Federal authority starts to break down and policy enforcement moves back to the state and metropolitan level.
August
Registration for the digital ID exceeds 80% of the UK population over 16 years old.
A loan repayment holiday of 12 months is announced on all debt obligations including mortgages, car loans, business loans and broadband data plans. Energy bills are frozen until March the following year.
September
The new digital currency BritCoin (bC) is launched. All wallets are seeded with 1000bC and the major UK banks reopen for online users only. The new currency is digital only and has no representative coinage.
All frozen bank accounts up to a value of £110,000 can be automatically converted to the new ‘currency’ at a ‘one for one’ rate for the next twelve months, dropping to ‘one for two’ after that. No cash deposits are allowed. All equities, pensions and deposits over $110,000 remain frozen and are subject to a second government review to determine legal ownership after insolvency.
Access to the digital wallet is through a mobile phone app protected by biometric security. A payment card system is announced for later in the year but will only be valid for a fixed period as customers transition across and 5G is extended to all areas of the UK. The government announces a free smartphone and subsidised data plan programme for all pension recipients and early adopters of the digital ID.
All government and local taxes must be paid using BritCoin. Stirling cash is still technically legal tender until January but its purchasing power is almost zero. Major retailers only accept the new digital currency. A vibrant black market ‘barter’ system based on goods, services and precious metals operates as a shadow economy.
October
The UK Central Committee announces a Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme to be launched in the new year. The scheme will place 400bC into each digital wallet every month without means testing. This will replace all social security payments and other government allowances. Income tax is abolished and replaced with a fixed charge on every digital payment. The policy is hugely popular and the adoption of the digital wallet starts to approach 90% of the population.
A BritCoin credit facility is opened to businesses that meet ESG standards.
The driving licence and passport information is merged into the digital ID in order to simplify the system.
The government is forced to scale back the NHS to basic primary care. As a temporary measure, care facilities are handed over to the private sector funded through personal insurance schemes and selected government grants. A general review of the NHS is initiated.
Social order is slowly restored as BritCoin (bC) starts to circulate. Fuel for cars and heating becomes available although the regional travel ban remains.
November
The UK economy falls into a recession as GDP plummets by 40%.
Schools reopen although colleges and university campuses remain closed. Some leisure and sports venues reopen subject to operating biometric security based on the national ID system.
Media is tightly controlled to prevent ‘mis-information’ circulating. Independent media stations are forcibly closed down and some persistent dissenters either jailed or de-banked. Challenges are made in the courts but they are found to be legal under the provisions of the Online Safety Act 2023 which allows financial penalties for any platform or individual failing to remove information the UK government deems to be dangerous. The courts rule that the definition of ‘dangerous’ in this context is anything that challenges government policy.
In order to crack down on money laundering, criminal activity and information that undermines national security the government starts a trial scheme to force all Internet providers to require a biometric ID before allowing access to data traffic. Although unpopular, the proposal is accepted as a necessary restriction during the emergency period.
Information on traffic offences and other convictions is merged into the digital ID to align it with the UN and EU standards.
December
Fuel for vehicles becomes available at a fixed price and the travel ban is lifted for the Christmas holiday. The number of EV charging stations is greatly increased to alleviate the fuel shortage. Charging is subsidised through the BritCoin system making EVs highly desirable after a depressed period of sales. To reduce the increasing number of EV car thefts, a remote ‘kill-switch’ is made mandatory in all new vehicles.
The general situation is helped by a mild winter in the UK although reports for central and Eastern Europe suggest severe hardships in the more remote parts of the EU.
People are relieved that the year is over and face the next twelve months with the hope that it will bring a degree of stability and prosperity.
Greg and Britney’s Story:
North London,
UK
Early Summer
Greg noticed it when he checked the previous night’s sports results - the internet was down or at least he had difficulty accessing the cable news station and social media websites. The problem was not completely unexpected. When an excavator went through a cable at the end of the road, it took two days to get the services reconnected and the whole event seriously messed up Greg’s work schedule. However this was different, some sites were up and others down, so it wasn’t the cable. Maybe it was a wireless glitch. He thought of turning on the radio, only to realise he didn’t own one.
After making breakfast and waking up Britney he checked with their immediate neighbours, John and Stella to see if they had the same issue. The information he gained was concerning. Being a member of an older generation, John had a couple of FM radios stored in his shed and appeared to be fully up to date with events. Apparently, a cyber-attack had disrupted a number of key services and people were being urged to remain at home until normality returned. According to the government announcements, all schools, colleges and major travel hubs were temporally closed. Thanking them for the loan of a spare radio, Greg returned home to share the news.
The immediate period after the crash was surreal. At first it was just a disruption to the normal routine but after two days it was clear something had changed. Lack of information was the worst aspect. Nobody knew what was going on; it was just the usual references to continued cyber-attacks.
Greg and Britney stayed at home, taking stock of what was in the house, talking to neighbours and expecting things to return to normal. People were strangely calm, like events were taking place on an extended holiday, so the announcement on Friday that a State of Emergency had been declared came as a bit of a shock. It was quickly followed by a banking announcement which was promoted as a plan to protect personal savings while the cyber-attack was ongoing. This was the first time Greg and Britney had heard the term ‘bail-in’ but the idea that the banks could simply take the contents in your account seemed unlikely. They just assumed they had misunderstood the details of the plan and it wasn’t like they had any savings to be concerned about.
Things calmed down a bit when the ATMs came back on line allowing limited cash withdrawals. Greg walked down to the local cash machine just as the store opened. He joined the queue and managed to withdraw the maximum amount which was fortunate because, after years of tapping-out, the couple had little cash in the house. The ATM wasn’t fully loaded and there was a bit of a scuffle as the last of the notes ran out. Greg took the cash, drove to the supermarket and bought what was left on the shelves, returning with a strange selection of non-perishable goods, mainly tins of fish, beans and pasta. Driving back past the queues at the petrol station, Greg was thankful that he hadn’t yet traded in the EV.
The next few weeks were weird. Like most people, the couple just expected things to return to normal, but they didn’t. Fortunately, power and heating remained unaffected so the days were spent listening to the TV and radio and picking up local information from social media. Britney took stock of the food in the house and reckoned they were fine for a week or so, living on tinned food combined with either pasta or rice while running down the contents of the freezer.
In a positive way the community was drawn together during that period. It was as if the entire world had shrunk down to the immediate neighbourhood. The first weeks of the crash were spent walking between houses, sharing coffee and tea, trying to work out what was going on. The fine weather helped to ease people’s anxieties. Britney went back to helping out at the child care hub although nobody knew if the salary would be forthcoming. The centre also served as a useful location for swapping goods, services and information. Nobody was commuting to work due to the travel ban which was being enforced by security checkpoints located on major junctions manned by army reservists.
Greg worked from home when he could get a stable internet connection as well as operating an impromptu UBER service running errands for neighbours in the EV. Britney discovered that one of the neighbours kept chickens and on one occasion swapped a ride for six eggs which served as Greg’s first introduction to the emerging barter system.
The main focus of that early period was engaging with social media and local gossip to discover the location of functioning ATM’s, shops that still held stock and pop-up farmer’s markets. As the time went on without any signs of normality returning, Greg made contact with his father, Martin, who owned a cottage in Norfolk to check on his wellbeing. He seemed to be doing alright with plenty of local produce, a tight local community but little in the way of formal support services.
It was clear from media bulletins that the government was working hard to get the system back up and running after the cyber-attacks. Announcements assured the population that access to accounts would be restored shortly but it would be with a new type of money. Nobody really cared that much what the currency was called - they just needed something to trade for a reliable supply of food and fuel for the cars.
The summer harvest started to appear in the local markets which eased the food situation. Up to now exchange was occurring in an ad hoc barter system. The old cash notes were still being used but Greg noted that older coinage was also in demand. It turned out that much of the pre-decimal coins were made of silver and therefore had real tradable value. It was strange to see coins carrying the heads of long dead monarchs being used in preference to the modern one-pound coin. People also broke down jewellery items to use in barter. At the farmer’s market Britney saw the links from heavy gold chains previously beloved by rappers and soccer stars being used as well as gold sovereigns on very rare occasions. Although all of this activity had a certain novelty, all that everybody really wanted was the banking system restored so they could tap-out.
A government announcement explained that to gain access to your restored bank account, you’d require a digital ID (DiD) to establish ownership and reduce instances of fraud. It was the first sign that things were getting back to normal and everyone in the couple’s new social circle took it as a sign that stability was returning. You could apply online and if you already had a valid passport the process was pretty straightforward. The couple quickly went through the application procedure, downloaded the you.gov DiD app and waited.
A week later the application was approved and a large green checkmark appeared on the app along with a QR code and a token file that could be passed to third parties should they request it. Once the DiD became active it became easier to access public buildings and move through the security checkpoints although it was frustrating that a launch date for the associated digital wallet was still months away. Procuring food and other essentials was still dependent on bartering, exchanging items of value (mainly gold and silver) and sterling paper notes although prices were now massively inflated. A single loaf of bread might cost £30 or £50 The normal legal tender coinage was completely valueless. Greg maintained a store of £1 coins that he used to operate legacy slot devices but other than that they had only scrap value.
Just as things began to normalise, the fragility of Greg and Britney’s position was made clear.
Late one evening, a group of men wearing masks visited each house in the street searching for food, money and goods to barter. They took some of Britney’s last remaining pieces of jewellery, all the re-sellable food along with most of the currency recently withdrawn from the ATM. It was like a well organised military operation, each group passing the stolen goods into a van before moving onto the next house. Non-cooperation was met with a threat of violence although nobody was actually injured.
Britney was really scared and upset. Although she had heard of similar occurrences in other areas of the city she always thought of the local neighbourhood as fairly sheltered. That illusion was now shattered and it was clear they needed to relocate to a safer location. The move was planned as a temporary measure, once things stabilised they would return to the house and the old routine.
That weekend, the couple packed everything of value into the EV, locked up, passed a spare set of house keys to John and Stella and headed to Norfolk.
Greg and Britney anticipated some issues on the journey but the ban on all non-essential movement meant the roads were largely deserted. The London ring-road was empty with no delays except for a checkpoint on the entry slip road. At the barrier the digital IDs were scanned, the reason for the journey logged and after a halfhearted search of the vehicle, the EV with its two passengers and boxes of clothes and goods were waved through.
Late Summer.
The Village,
Norfolk: UK
On arrival, Greg’s father, Martin, was relieved to see them both and welcomed them into the house. His cottage, which was really an old farmhouse with numerous spare rooms and an outhouse, was located on the edge of a small village with expansive farmland to the rear. To the front and across the lane, a large oak tree provided shade in the summer and a refuge for small birds and squirrels. Over tea, Martin told them that his grandfather had planted the oak from an acorn but Britney thought that seemed unlikely as it must have been hundreds of years old. Just before the crash, Martin was in the process of putting the cottage on the market with a view to moving to the coast but events put a halt to that plan. The couple immediately relaxed into the new surroundings as the countryside seemed unaffected by events.
Britney spent the first week just sorting out the new living arrangements while Greg continued his work online. The countryside folk were better adapted to the new situation than those in the town. Martin ran an old Land Rover which always seemed to have a supply of diesel and farm food was always available which made a big change from eating tinned fish and pasta. On the second night of the stay, they cooked a free-range chicken and drank cider until Greg fell asleep on the sofa.
The local community seemed to fall effortlessly into a group-assist and share mode. Greg helped out running errands for the villagers using the Land Rover while the EV was left parked next to the outhouse with twenty miles of charge left in the dash.
Later that same week Greg made contact with Gary and Steve, who had a charger hooked up to solar panels and a battery store. They were running a small barter operation charging up EVs in exchange for food and other necessities. The brothers became the first port of call for anything in short supply and if they didn’t have it, they probably knew somebody who did. The couple made more new friends in the first month than they did living in the town for ten years.
Britney started an informal child care facility in the cottage outhouse which slowly morphed into a general holding place for kids while the schools remained closed. Martin turned out to be a natural teacher and entertainer and all the kids loved him. Everything ran on a sort of trust and favour system. Children were often dropped off at the cottage along with a bag of onions. Other than food, pharmaceuticals and medicines had real barter value during this time.
Greg had some concerns about how they were going to maintain the London house but in August the loan repayment holiday was announced which solved the immediate problem. John and Stella reported that things had quietened down in the city although there was still the occasional report of a shop being looted. Greg took the EV back to London just to check things out, taking some farm produce for John and Stella and bringing back tools, clothes and personal items that wouldn’t fit into the EV during the initial journey. The trip was uneventful with few cars on the road, although the check points seemed to be more numerous and better organised. Greg thought that moving around without a DiD at this stage would have been difficult.
Early Autumn
Things started to settle down as Autumn arrived. Plans were announced to allow full access to bank accounts through the new digital money scheme. The process was fairly seamless and the couple were reunited with a bank account seeded with 1000 units of a new bC currency. A mobile app allowed payments to be made at shops that had transferred over to the new system. All online sites already accepted the new money. It was odd to be using a currency that had no equivalent coinage but it worked surprising well.
In September the schools reopened. Britney still ran the informal nursery although the older ones drifted back into the system. There was a lot of talk about the Universal Basic Income that was going to be launched in the new year. It was generally accepted as a good idea and something that would get the economy moving again, although the older villagers believed it was just “money for nothing”. The couple talked about moving back to London but were enjoying life at the cottage and so decided to put off any decision until the new year.
What ever they circumstances they all all agreed things would get better when things returned to normal.