Snippings

xxx

People are increasingly using AI apps such as ChatGPT in lieu of traditional search engines such as Google. To handle topical queries that require web access, OpenAI relies on Bing, whose owner is OpenAI’s biggest outside shareholder

From: Meta Develops AI Search Engine to Lessen Reliance on Google, Microsoft — The Information.

xxx

xxx

New data from FIDO Alliance shows passkey awareness has risen from 39% familiarity in 2022, to 57% in 2024.

Moreover, businesses are missing out on revenue from younger generations, with 50% of people aged 25-34 abandoning at least one purchase per month because they had forgotten their password.

From: Youth of today say passwords are old news, passkeys are the future | TechRadar.

xxx

xxx

Data aggregators, such as Plaid and Akoya, which provide connections among banks and financial tech services, and the Financial Technology Association, whose members include aggregators and payments companies like PayPal (PYPL.O), opens new tab, praised the rule, saying it would promote the secure transfer of consumer data.
But other trade groups said they were not happy.
Lindsey Johnson, head of the Consumer Bankers Association, said in a statement the CFPB had “contorted” the co

From: ‘Open banking’ rules for consumer data unveiled by US watchdog | Reuters.

xxx

xxx

Payments using mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google pay reached 39 per cent of card transactions in the June quarter 2024, the annual report of the Payments System Board shows.

Nearly half of all card transactions are soon expected to be made via a mobile device in Australia

From: Wallet share hits 40%.

xxx

Similarly, in Simon Taylor’s interesting discussion about the use of AI agent in financial services he says that there are a few layers to regulation and the first one that he sets out is identity because strong credentials (which I took to mean credentials that are strongly authenticated at point of presentation) are the crucial link between the agent and the entity it represents. 

xxx

Fashion retailer Mango became one of the first to feature AI-generated glam bots in its adverts back in July — just days before the company reported its highest revenues in four decades.

From: Fashion models step aside as AI glam bots join them in ads: ‘It’s about faster content creation’.

xxx

xxx

Deutsche Bank subsidiary Postbank is preparing to roll out a service that enables consumers to generate a barcode on their phone to withdraw or deposit around €1,000 per day at 12,500 retail locations in Germany

From: Postbank generates cash via barcode.

xxx

Deena Bishop, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, had to write a policy to limit the use of cell phones in classrooms. She decided to use generatiive AI with the almost inevitable result, given the propensity of the technology to “hallucinate”, that she ended up citing six scientific studies that did not actually exist.

xxx

The Treasury estimates that $120 billion worth of T-bills have been purchased to serve as yield-bearing stablecoin collateral. The majority of that sum—nearly $81 billion—has been purchased by Tether, the company behind the crypto market’s largest stablecoin, USDT.

From: US Treasury Says Stablecoins Should Be Replaced by a CBDC – Decrypt.

xxx

xxx

The U.S. Treasury Department is concerned about the growth of the stablecoin market and believes privately issued stablecoins should eventually be replaced by a state-backed central bank digital currency (CBDC), according to a Treasury report released Wednesday.

From: US Treasury Says Stablecoins Should Be Replaced by a CBDC – Decrypt.

xxx