Category Archives: Uncategorized

xxx “There’s a lot of restaurants and other businesses that want to go cashless,” said John Longstreet, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association. He said he sees an upside to going cashless. “Because places that handle cash are less safe than those that don’t have cash on hand. Everything is reportedContinue reading “Cashless trend worries lawmakers: "If it’s not discrimination, it’s elitism" – CBS News”

xxx It’s well understood that shops that accept bitcoin are really trying to segment the market and get a more affluent tech savvy crowd just to come in and shop but they really don’t want to spend bitcoin, they just want those people to enter the premises.” From Who uses the bitcoin ATMs popping upContinue reading “Who uses the bitcoin ATMs popping up at delis across the U.S.?”

xxx A former Walmart executive said shopper theft was a major reason why the company killed Scan & Go, a cashierless-checkout technology, several months after expanding it to more than 100 stores. From Ex-Walmart exec says theft helped kill Walmart’s cashierless tech – Business Insider. xxx

xxx It’s not just a deteriorating Moore’s Law. The other driver toward specialized processors is a new set of applications that are not amenable to general-purpose computing. For starters, you have platforms like mobile devices and the internet of things (IoT) that are so demanding with regard to energy efficiency and cost, and are deployedContinue reading “The Era of General Purpose Computers is Ending”

xxx “the main source of electoral fraud in the UK is not personation at the polling station but fraudulently-completed postal ballots, a situation that led one British judge to call it ‘a system that would disgrace a banana republic’.” From “Voter ID is back, and this time it’s in Woking – 15Mb”. xxx

xxx “Using a difference-in-differences design on a 1.3-billion-observations panel, we find the laws have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation. These results hold through a large number of specifications and cannot be attributed to mobilization against the laws, measured by campaignContinue reading “Strict ID Laws Don’t Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel – Marginal REVOLUTION”

xxx “In the latest research, 29% of adults don’t use any cash for weekly purchases, up from 24% in 2015. Those consumers who claim that they still make all or nearly all purchases for cash fell to 18%, versus 24% in 2015.” From “More Americans Say Farewell to Cash”. xxx

In line with the Taskforce, we have categorised cryptoassets into three types of tokens; Exchange tokens: these are not issued or backed by any central authority and are intended and designed to be used as a means of exchange. They are, usually, a decentralised tool for buying and selling goods and services without traditional intermediaries.Continue reading “FCA Crypto”

xxx “Due to the new ‘dynamic linking’ requirements for remote electronic payments, online retailers will no longer be able to charge an estimated amount to a customer’s card where the final amount is yet to be confirmed. Instead, the retailer will need to look at alternative mechanisms, such as obtaining authorisation for a maximum amount,Continue reading “Preparing for Strong Customer Authentication and Open Banking (with or without Brexit) – Fieldfisher”

One of the European Central Bank (ECB) board members, Yves Mersch, recently said that “for merchants, instant payments at the POI (point of interaction) could be a cost-efficient alternative to cards”. This is hardly a new idea (I’ve written about it frequently) and I think that there is a general feeling in the cards businessContinue reading “ECB chief says instant payments could break Visa/Mastercard duopoly”