Snippings

xxx

CaixaBank is the world’s first bank to create ATMs with effortlessly and securely integrated biometric technology.

From CaixaBank deploys ATMs with facial recognition technology throughout Spain:

Excuse me, but I don’t think so. When my sister worked for Nationwide Building Society, she loved using their cardless biometric ATM and that was more than two decades ago! But actually there’s another reason why this headline caught my eye, and it is this: as the COVID crisis has accelerated the trend toward a cashless economy (apparently the average Brit has now gone 44 days without using cash) so making fancy additions to ATMs starts to look a little like designing new deckchairs on the Titanic.

xxx

Could digital wallets be the West’s answer to the super-app? Evolving beyond their traditional role, digital wallets now offer a range of services, including digital identity management, and much more, as David Birch points out in this article

“The transition from physical wallets to digital wallets is underway for sure. But if you think that those wallets are about payments, I think you are missing the big picture.”
Additionally as highlighted by Brett King as a quote in the recent Samlink – A Kyndryl Company report – The Samlink Equation 2024, many have started to have a preference for digital wallets over their traditional banking apps when it comes to managing daily financial matters. Open banking and embedded finance further enhances this trend, allowing digital wallets to offer a consolidated view of a user’s financial life.

From: (6) My Super-App is bigger than your Super-App! | LinkedIn.

xxx

xxx

A good deal of sharing that once took place publicly — within the Facebook News Feed, for instance — now occurs within messaging apps.

From: WhatsApp is Finally Starting to Dominate in the United States. Here’s Why..

xxx

xxx

More than half of the $1.3 billion contract budget is earmarked for offline payments development.

From: ECB Shows It’s Serious About Enabling Offline Use of Euro CBDC.

xxx

xxx

It’s a far more modest plan than the grand design X touted a few months ago to build “a global payments system” within a year, but it’s a crucial — and most importantly, a realistic — first step.

From: Why Elon Musk’s X narrowed its focus to peer-to-peer payments | PaymentsSource | American Banker.

xxx

I happened to be listening to the fascinating Patrick McKenzie talking with Tyler Cowan when he was asked the interesting quesiton “why is it you still have to sign the back of your credit card?”, a question that I used to enjoy teasing American audiences with. (Here’s a Talmudic take on the issue from a few years ago.)

xxx

“The counterfeiter probably didn’t realize that that coin didn’t exist,” Dr. Ortega said.

From: The Mystery of the Coin That Shouldn’t Exist – The New York Times.

xxx

Coins are so interesting, such an important element of cultural heritage, it will be a shame to see them go. But go they must. 

xxx

A US lobby group representing the interests of Big Tech firms has hit out at proposals by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to regulate tech giants such as Apple and Google that offer digital payment apps and wallets.

In November, the Bureau published a proposed rule that would see non-bank financial companies that handle more than five million transactions per year face the same rules as large banks and credit unions.

The rule would cover around 17 companies, most notably Google, Apple, PayPal and CashApp operator Block. These firms would have to adhere to applicable funds transfer, privacy, and other consumer protection laws.

From: Big Tech firms begin fight back over regulatory oversight of digital wallets.

xxx

xxx

ICL was created primarily from the merger of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) and English Electric Computers, the latter of which had been formed by the union of Elliott Automation and English Electric Leo Marconi (EELM) computers.

This meant ICL inherited several different computers, the most notable of which  was the ICT 1900 Series of mainframes, while English Electric Computers (EEC) gave ICL the System 4, a range of IBM-compatible mainframe clones.

From: Tales In Tech History: ICL, The British Computing Giant.

xxx

xxx

Shaanxi Coal Group’s Caojiatan Coal Mine is one of the largest mines in China, with an approved capacity of 25 million tons per year and recently upgraded to become the world’s first 5G-Advanced (5G-A / 5.5G) smart coal mine. With faster download speeds and low latency, 5G-A offers the potential for AI and to also make the Internet of Things a reality. On November 20 2023, through a joint collaboration with Shaanxi Coal Group, China Telecom, Huawei and TD Tech, Caojiatan Smart Mine was announced at the 2023 China 5G+ Industrial Internet Conference.

The project introduces key 5G-A technologies including low-frequency uplinks and REDCAP for the first time. On the production side, Caojiatan has built 6 smart coal mining working faces, two of which have reduced the number of personnel from 17 to 7, significantly improving coal production efficiency.

From: Shaanxi Coal Group Caojiatan: The World’s First 5G-A Smart Mine, powered by Huawei – Mobile World Live.

xxx