Author Archives: David Birch

Paddington Bear stood on the shiny marble floor of the Great London Bank, clutching a large, slightly sticky envelope in his paw. Outside, the red double-decker buses trundled past, but inside, the air smelled strongly of polished wood and caution. “Good morning,” said Paddington, tipping his red hat politely. “I have come to deposit aContinue reading “POST Peru”

Mark van Rijmenam talks about BigTech “dismantling” the consumer metaverse while shifting the spatial computing focus on to” hospitals, factories, and defense ministries”. I think “dismantling” is the wrong word here (I think “reconfiguring” is better, given the consumer preferences for augmented reality, smart glasses and so on) but I understand what he is saying.Continue reading “POST Spatial Computing”

xxx the residual correlation between AI adoption and recent productivity growth falls to essentially zero From: AI and productivity – by Ernie Tedeschi – Stripe Economics. xxx

xxx First, solopreneurship is growing faster than employer-business formation, and the acceleration is validated by multiple independent data sources, making it unlikely to be driven by a fraud wave. Second, both the number and share of solopreneurs reaching meaningful income thresholds is rising. And third, early signals indicate that AI is filling the capability gapsContinue reading “The age of the solopreneur”

The issue of privacy is complex and I think we all understand that it has nuances, edge cases and issues around rights and responsibilities that need society as a whole to consider and come up with new ethics and etiquette to see us through the coming era of always on, continual surveillance. This may haveContinue reading “POST PeopleTags”

xxx ules for tracking parties and monitoring secondary activity create a compliance regime that burdens every party with the need to understand the provenance of a coin. Can you imagine accepting $2000 for a new TV, shipping it out, then having your stablecoins burned? From: FIncen / OFAC 303 Page Rule Squashes Stablecoin eCom Ambitions |Continue reading “FIncen / OFAC 303 Page Rule Squashes Stablecoin eCom Ambitions | Noyes Payments Blog”

xxx Elder fraud is a rapidly growing problem in the U.S. In 2024, Americans aged 60 and older lost $4.9 billion to scams — more than any other age group, according to the FBI. The average loss was $83,000. From: Should a bank ever be liable when a customer gets scammed? | American Banker. xxx

xxx Key insight: Cards are the major payment method for agentic commerce, but that will change as usage of the technology grows.  What’s at stake: Not supporting local payments, such as digital wallets and account-to-account payments, will stymie the market’s growth potential. Forward look: There are still technology challenges, including authentication, since most payment systemsContinue reading “Agentic commerce has a payment tech opening for banks | American Banker”

xxx The thing is, whether we get a refund or not, we had to spend time fighting this nonsense. The scammers here are dumping the burden of proof onto consumers and ordinary small business people like these hotel operators, which is a form of social pollution. They may only steal money from a few ofContinue reading “Monopoly Round-Up: Living in an Age of Cheating Means Having Your Time Stolen Constantly”

Scott Cornell, EVP and Crime and Theft Specialist at SPG Cargo & Logistics, confirmed that cargo thieves deliberately struck security escorts protecting two high-value technology shipments. The drivers continued with each load instead of stopping for help! Cornell linked both successful crimes to failures during carrier verification. (It’s always about identity, right?) He also talkedContinue reading “POST High-Tech Crime”