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xxx The technology is already having an impact in unexpected ways. In April, the transportation payment app Tianfu Tong caused many tech-savvy commuters to be late for work in Chengdu when it stopped generating new QR codes. Commuters were forced to line up at ticketing machines to buy tickets like it was the 20th Century.Continue reading “QR code payments make long commutes even longer in China | Abacus”

xxx But as company vice president Alice Chan told Eater SF, they didn’t found Zippin to squash Amazon Go directly. Instead, they want to sell their technology to potential Amazon Go competitors and spread the wealth. “We don’t want to be a retailer opening a lot of stores, but our goal is to power otherContinue reading “Another checkout-free store opened in SF. Here’s how it compares to Amazon. – SFGate”

xxx BMW’s website now reveals that beginning with the 2019 model year, it’s turning the CarPlay interface between iPhones and the vehicle’s infotainment system into a subscription service. From How BMW’s new annual fee for Apple CarPlay could define the IoT | Network World. xxx

xxx The UK government’s troubled £154m digital identity project Verify is to be flagged red by Whitehall’s major projects watchdog, meaning delivery looks unachievable From Red flag: Verify to be marked ‘undeliverable’ by gov projects watchdog • The Register. xxx

xxx If checkable deposits become central bank liabilities, the loanable funds they provide will no longer be allocated by the competitive private banking system, but rather by the government, which is a recipe for inefficiency and cronyism. From Efficient “Central Bank Digital Currency” is a Fantasy – Alt-M. xxx

Aussie CDR The BIS Annual Review for 2019 touches on this, noting that “Another, newer type of risk is the anticompetitive use of data. Given their scale and technology, big techs have the ability to collect massive amounts of data at near zero cost. This gives rise to “digital monopolies” or “data-opolies”. The BIS goContinue reading “Data and discrmination”

xxx The instruments of trade and finance are inventions, in the same way that creations of art and discoveries of science are inventions—products of the human imagination. From The Invention of Money | The New Yorker. xxx

xxx But, above all, there will be money to be made from the data generated by all these transactions; after all, data is currency, too. From Facebook’s Audacious Pitch for a Global Cryptocurrency | The New Yorker. xxx

xxx US and European banks are steering clear of Libra, Facebook’s project for a new cryptocurrency, for fear of antagonising regulators and cannibalising their own digital currency projects From Banks in no rush to join Facebook’s crypto project | Financial Times. xxx

xxx These problems have three remedies. First, governments need to ensure that central banks’ monopoly over coins and notes is not replaced by private monopolies over digital money. Rather than letting a few credit-card firms have a stranglehold on the electronic pipes for digital payments, as America may yet allow, governments must ensure the paymentsContinue reading “Rich countries must start planning for a cashless future – The dash off cash”