Author Archives: David Birch

xxx A registry of artificial intelligence agents is being developed for 150,000 public officers in Singapore to use cutting-edge AI in their work without compromising data security. This registry is a safeguard to track the owners and activities of AI agents, which can make decisions and execute actions at machine speed.  It is part ofContinue reading “Singapore’s AI registry for public officers | The Straits Times”

xxx Police have launched a criminal investigation into an officer accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) systems to “create evidential material in a number of cases”. From: Derbyshire Police officer accused of using AI to ‘create evidence’ – BBC News. xxx

xxx New research from LINK, the operator of the UK’s ATM network, highlights just how much payment habits are shifting. Its latest findings show that a growing number of high street businesses are going cashless, with 14% of shops stopping the acceptance of notes and coins over the past 12 months. From: Cashless trend growsContinue reading “Cashless trend grows as one in seven UK high street shops ditch cash”

xxx When a customer authorizes an agent to make purchases, Stripe provisions an agentic network token from Mastercard or Visa scoped to the customer’s intent and shares it with the agent. The agent can then use these tokens across any seller accepting agentic payments and anywhere Mastercard or Visa is accepted. The network then handlesContinue reading “Supporting additional payment methods for agentic commerce”

xxx Agents might have turned out to be perfect optimizers who select a card for the consumer based on the best rewards proposition for that specific purchase. The “race to the bottom” on steroids. This could still happen, but is harder without an Agentic wallet. From: (18) Agentic Commerce hits speed bumps – by AndrewContinue reading “(18) Agentic Commerce hits speed bumps – by Andrew M. Dresner”

xxx Customer loyalty is dead. 76% of consumers are ready to switch their financial provider for better digital money-management features available through open finance, and 44% already have. That’s a tidal wave, and the result of surveying 8,000 consumers across 11 markets by Mastercard and FT Longitude. From: Bank Customer Loyalty is Dead: 89% ofContinue reading “Bank Customer Loyalty is Dead: 89% of Your US Customers Are Ready to Walk, 76% Global”

xxx The big change in financial services will come when customers use AI to assess offers from financial institutions for themselves. They will have access to AI as powerful as the banks have, because Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon (and companies like them) will be giving it to them. And this will mean individuals willContinue reading “Where are the customers’ bots? The AI paradigm shift in retail banking | HSTalks”

xxx Mercor, an AI company valued at $10 billion, has been the victim of a major data breach which appears to include ID documents along with user face and voice biometrics. The highly valued startup supplies training data to major artificial intelligence companies including Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta. The three‑year‑old firm said the breach wasContinue reading “AI company’s breached biometrics, ID document images make deepfake fraud easier | Biometric Update”

xxx Miebach also raised doubts about identity verification, asking, “Is the agent actually what the agent claims to be?” From: Mastercard CEO shares grave concerns over AI agentic commerce – TheStreet. xxx

xxx The CFTC proposed a new rulebook for prediction markets in the US. The framework would allow most sports-related bets while trying to avoid inviting obvious manipulation. Under the new rules, contracts on player injuries, officiating outcomes, “first-pitch” bets, player ejections, and virtually all bets on war, terrorism, or assassinations would be barred as notContinue reading “In prediction markets, the house always wins (TWIF 6/12)”