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Mastercard will provide participating US issuers free access to its Account Owner Verification, Account Detail Verification and Account Balance Check technology.

Issuers can use this to support digital account opening of Mastercard-branded consumer and small business debit and general-purpose reloadable consumer prepaid products.

From: Mastercard offers issuers open banking-based account opening.

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It could also be that the platform turnover comes in some form we can’t yet fully describe from AI-based characters in some new entertainment ecosystem. The case of @lilmiquela, the venture-backed virtual character on instagram with 1.5 million followers, is the writing on the wall that just as influencers over time will become more engaging fictional characters, fictional characters also will invade our real-world landscapes with a vengeance.

From: What Will Happen to the Social Wealth of Instagram Influencers as They Age? — The Information.

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An unknown party has automated a process that forks legitimate repositories, meaning the source code is copied so developers can use it in an independent project that builds on the original one. The result is millions of forks with names identical to the original one that add a payload that’s wrapped under seven layers of obfuscation. To make matters worse, some people, unaware of the malice of these imitators, are forking the forks, which adds to the flood.

From: GitHub besieged by millions of malicious repositories in ongoing attack | Ars Technica.

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The challenge for authorities is to develop a more compelling customer proposition for a CBDC. Their primary argument for one, framed around hypothetical monetary fragmentation and the vague promise of future payment innovations, are too abstract to persuade the public of its utility. Instead, authorities should highlight four key consumer benefits from a CBDC and reflect these in its design. First, a CBDC could give consumers greater choice by providing a digital means for making payments with fewer conditionalities. A CBDC would guarantee universal access to digital payment systems for people in an increasingly cashless economy, regardless of their credit history or political beliefs, and without imposing minimum balance or usage requirements.

From: Britcoin needs a bolder vision.

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Jack Dorsey told equity analysts on a call to discuss Block’s quarterly earnings.

From: Block’s Dorsey: Cash App Is Your New Bank, And Square May Enlist ISOs – Digital Transactions.

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As for Block’s other division, Cash App, the company is moving to position the mobile wallet as a substitute for “your bank,” Dorsey said. The foundation of this strategy, he added, is trust. “We want people to see Cash App as something they can trust with the full deposit of their paycheck,” Dorsey said. The app has reached 2 million active paycheck depositors so far, noted chief financial officer Amrita Ahuja on the call. The app claims 3 million active users overall as of December, up fully 50% from September, and $2.5 billion in gross payment volume.

From: Block’s Dorsey: Cash App Is Your New Bank, And Square May Enlist ISOs – Digital Transactions.

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The plan hinges on expanding features within Block’s Cash App and the Cash App Card to close the distance between its own offerings and those of a bank. Block plans to add mobile check deposit, bill payment and wire transfers, Dorsey said in a shareholder’s letter also released Thursday.

 

Cash App already offers a Visa debit card, two-days-early direct deposit, cash deposits, instant discounts on debit spending and an FDIC-insured savings account with no minimum balance and free overdraft insurance. Cash App also offers short-term credit through Borrow, as well as stocks and bitcoin services. Its banking services are supported by Sutton Bank and Lincoln Savings Bank.

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Preferred Payment Methods for In-Store Purchases
39% prefer swiped/chip card
24% prefer contactless card
19% prefer cash
7% prefer mobile wallet

From: Top 4 Preferred Payment Methods for In-Store Purchases – PaymentsJournal.

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Meanwhile, in the UK, virtually no-one pays any other way than contactless, whether phone or card.

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Narrative #3: Blockchains can empower AI bots with money — and that’s a good thing

Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, has noted that bots are already performing transactions using cryptocurrency and tweeted that “AI and Blockchains are made for each other.” This is true in the sense that cryptocurrency is a good match for the capabilities of AI agents. But it’s also worrisome.

From: What can blockchain do for AI? Not what you’ve heard. – Blockworks.

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The dynamics of cash, then, seem paradoxical. The use of cash continues to fall whereas the amount of cash out there continues to go up. So where is all that cash? Well, I found some of them: check out the pictures here of the €500,000 cash mountain that police found in a bust of gang that had made £165m by ferrying drugs around the UK. At one point (in 2020) they were bringing in £400,000 every single day.

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An AI bot could act as your intern.
One reason chatbots like the one Holding used might not take over tons of jobs right away is there are limits to what AI can do — for now. Generative AI tools often still require oversight, much like an inexperienced worker might.

From: How AI Is Tackling Jobs Humans Don’t Have Time for.

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In his 2023 study published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, Bechler found that consumers “pay with card to remember and cash to forget” because the latter method won’t leave a paper trail of their purchases.

From: Why Does the US Continue to Print Money When Cash Is No Longer King?.

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