Snippings

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Since the UK left the EU, travellers heading to all countries within the zone – and including Iceland, Norway, Lichtenstein and Switzerland, but not Ireland – must have a passport which was issued less than 10 years before their departure date.
It must also be valid for three months after their planned return date.
However, if a UK passport was issued before September 2018, it could in fact be valid for up to 10 years and nine months.

From: Holidaymakers going to EU caught out by 10-year-passport rule – BBC News.

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In fact, as I said back in 2018 in Wired, the big change in financial services will come when customers use AI to assess offers from financial institutions.

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Civic, an identity and access management solutions company, introduced a new physical ID card that Civic Pass holders can use to prove their identity and minimize the threat of AI driven identity fraud.

From: Civic now has a physical ID card system to prevent AI identity fraud – Blockworks.

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Big Tech firms don’t aspire to be banks, but they sure want a cut of their business.

Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon.com are rapidly encroaching on financial firms’ territory with digital wallets, payment apps, and even savings accounts. Banks and other financial firms are mounting a counterattack with their own apps—all fighting for a growing prize: billions of dollars in fees and other revenue as digital transactions grow from $9 trillion in 2023 to an estimated $16 trillion over the next five years, according to Juniper Research.

From: Apple and Google Could Win the War for the Digital Wallet – Barron’s.

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new research in the Global Payments Report 2024 from Worldpay.
The ubiquitous acceptance of digital wallets is enabling greater consumer choice and control in this era of payments innovation.
According to the findings, digital wallets accounted for $13.9 trillion in global transaction value in 2023, representing half of all online and 30% of consumer spend at point-of-sale (POS).

From: Global Payments Report 2024: Digital wallets to hit $25 trillion.

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Countries throughout MENA are witnessing a new wave of financial innovation with the convergence of digital wallets and Open Banking. Digital wallet providers can seamlessly integrate banking services into their platforms by using open APIs to access customer data from numerous institutions securely. Thanks to this connectivity, users benefit from improved personalisation, real-time transaction tracking, and simplified financial management

From: Open Banking and digital wallets: a fit for the MENA fintechs – ThePaypers.

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Wen eventually provided the correct blockchain address to Liffen. But the blockchain evidence didn’t match Zhang’s story. Mined bitcoin would come newly minted from just a few sources, but Zhang’s bitcoin had come from hundreds of sources, including crypto exchanges.

From: The mystery of the Hampstead mansion and the £1.4bn bitcoin haul.

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In the finest tradition of British digital identity infrastructure, the envy of less fortunate lands and famed around the world as a bulwark against chaos…

She obtained a fake gas bill Zhang could use as proof of address on a bank application

From: The mystery of the Hampstead mansion and the £1.4bn bitcoin haul.

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Ultimately, the opportunity is too good for any bank to ignore. The bigger banks will move slowly and cautiously, but they’re coming. If you wind that forward 20 years, you can see a world where banks no longer want to own distribution. They’d all start to look like Column, Lead Bank (or Griffin in the UK, who just raised their Series A). Banks, with a charter but no UI at all. Headless banks.

From: 🧠 Embedded Finance: Life after the consent orders. Apple vs DoJ.

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All but the biggest banks become headless. If embedded finance is so lucrative, why would banks operate any other way, especially smaller ones? Banks with large, profitable existing franchises are unlikely to give those up, but the prize for doing embedded finance well is too great to ignore.

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The risk to King Dollar’s status is still limited due to most nations’ alignment with the West and Beijing’s capital controls. But financial and economic linkages between China and sanctioned countries will necessarily strengthen if those countries can only accumulate reserves in China and only spend them there. Even nations that aren’t sanctioned may want to diversify their geopolitical risk.

From: If Russian Currency Reserves Aren’t Really Money, the World Is in for a Shock – WSJ.

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