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Economic advisors to Donald Trump are working out plans to blunt de-dollarization efforts, which could include penalties on any economy that moves away from the greenback.

Tariffs, export controls, and currency manipulation charges are among some ideas discussed by advisors to the former president, sources told Bloomberg. These measures would target countries that take part in bilateral trades not based in dollars, and could also include US allies.

From: Trump Advisers Want to Penalize De-Dollarization, Report Says.

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Clear Barrett, writing about “What I wish I’d know before my phone was snatched”, summarises our modern age succinclty. Look up and down any London street, she says, and you will see many, many people walking around with their phones unlocked in their hands despite the fact that the latest official figures (from the Office of National Statistics) show that over the last decade mobile phones have overtaken cash and payment cards as the items most often stolen from individuals in the United Kingdom.

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Ukraine on Wednesday presented an AI-generated spokesperson called Victoria who will make official statements on behalf of its foreign ministry.

The ministry said it would “for the first time in history” use a digital spokesperson to read its statements, which will still be written by humans.

Dressed in a dark suit, the spokesperson introduced herself as Victoria Shi, a “digital person”, in a presentation posted on social media. The figure gesticulates with her hands and moves her head as she speaks.

From: Ukraine unveils AI-generated foreign ministry spokesperson | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian.

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First, no matter how far we get in improving AI’s performance, AI’s adopters — users at home and in businesses, decision-makers in organizations, policymakers — must traverse a persistent trust gap. Second, companies need to invest in understanding the risks most responsible for the trust gap affecting their applications’ adoption and work to mitigate those risks. And third, pairing humans with AI will be the most essential risk-management tool, which means we shall always have a need for humans to steer us through the gap — and the humans need to be trained appropriately.

From: AI’s Trust Problem.

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The unstoppable rise of Stripe and Adyen and their successful move into  face-to-face payments is putting pressure on the incumbents, many of whom will be forced to consolidate to survive. Reviewing the outlook for payments M&A, TSG suggests large acquirers and private equity groups are willing buyers of profitable businesses provided that sellers recognise valuations are well down on 2021.

From: Business of Payments – May 2024 – by Geoffrey Barraclough.

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Whitney Wolfe Herd, Founder & Executive Chairman, Bumble, made some interesting comments in Bloomberg Tech interview. She said that perhaps in the future people would send their AIs out on dates together and let the AIs decide whether it woud be good to meet uo in real life,

From: Bumble’s Herd on the Next Chapter of Growth – YouTube.

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Sir Keith Mills, then a marketing executive, claims to have dreamt up the idea of the original Air Miles brand on a train back to London in the mid-1980s from a meeting in Liverpool with the now-defunct airline British Caledonian.

“I set up Air Miles to reward loyal customers, and also to enable companies that issued the currency to understand better what their customers’ needs were,” he said.

Geoffrey Bean, another advertising executive involved in the scheme, claims that Alan Deller, British Caledonian’s commercial director at the time, was the real architect, coming up with the idea of using unsold airline seats as promotional rewards.

Fast-forward to 2024 and what cannot be disputed is the financial clout of Avios, British Airways’ air miles programme. Accounts filed in recent days reveal that Avios generated £1.3 billion in revenue last year — equivalent to nearly £2,500 a minute — and registered a pre-tax profit of £320 million.

From: Making money from thin air: how air miles really work.

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The service is run through a third-party app created and operated by the software company Envoc. Once a user accesses a pornographic website, the pop-up will appear asking them to verify their age. The third-party app provides a code which the user then types into the LA Waller, president of Envoc Calvin Fabre told trade publication Government Technology.
“LA Wallet does not know the originating website, only that a compliance company is requesting an anonymous age challenge through the LA Wallet system,” says Fabre.

From: Meta, porn industry and Kansas governor weigh in on age verification | Biometric Update.

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Meta wants Google and Apple to take over age verification in Europe
Meta is calling for implementing age verification across Europe and proposed a way to do it. The company wants to “ensure that parents only need to verify the age of their child once and noted that the most effective way of achieving this would be to have operating systems or app stores complete the verification process.
The move would pass on the responsibility of age verification from social media platforms to firms such as Apple and Google. Other platforms have also in argued in favor of the solution, including Twitter and Match, the company behind dating apps like Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid.

From: Meta, porn industry and Kansas governor weigh in on age verification | Biometric Update.

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Upmarket UK challenger bank Monument Bank is the latest challenger bank to offer its tech to third parties, selling its “building society in a box” tech to legacy financial institutions.

Monument Bank, which launched in 2021, targets Britain’s wealthiest savers, entrepreneurs and property developers.

Monument Bank has over 30,000 clients and last year raised £40m-plus in a Series B funding round.

Like others in the challenger bank field, such as Starling and Monese, it is now offering its tech to third parties.

It has launched Monument Technology, which has publicly announced its first client, Ecology Building Society, which focuses on sustainable lending.

Ecology Building Society will integrate Monument’s banking platform next year.

From: Monument Bank latest challenger bank to sell “in a box” tech, as snaps up first client – Tech.eu.

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