Snippings

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The study reveals that 43% of consumers purchased a secondhand product in 2023, with high-income consumers being the most likely to make such purchases.

Additionally, younger and more affluent individuals reported making more secondhand purchases, indicating a shift in consumer behavior. Meanwhile, those who typically buy secondhand clothes are usually older and have lower incomes.

From: Nearly Half of High-Income Consumers Purchased Secondhand.

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Payment processor Fiserv has applied to obtain a merchant acquirer limited purpose bank charter in Georgia, enabling the company to authorize, settle and clear payment transactions for merchants, according to a company spokesperson.
“We are taking this step in response to recent market changes, as third-party financial institutions that have traditionally provided access to the card networks as sponsor banks increasingly focus on other areas of their business,” the Fiserv spokesperson said in a Thursday email.
There’s no official approval timeline, but the Brookfield, Wisconsin-based company expects the process to be complete sometime during the first half of the year, the spokesperson said.

From: Fiserv seeks special purpose bank charter | Payments Dive.

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Historically, Fiserv has used a bank partner to handle the end-of-day transaction settling for merchants. The special purpose charter would allow Fiserv to own the transaction end-to-end, eliminating third-party risk, said Tony DeSanctis, a senior director at Cornerstone Advisors. It’s also a more profitable endeavor for Fiserv, because the company doesn’t have to pay a bank to handle those transactions, he said.

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Arctic Ice harvests ice from the fjords of Greenland, and then ships them to the United Arab Emirates to sell to exclusive bars.

From: Greenland startup begins shipping glacier ice to cocktail bars in the UAE | Greenland | The Guardian.

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Everything old is new again.

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Digital ID Connect is a joint venture between Yoti, the Post Office and Lloyds Bank and is the leading app for those seeking to prove their identity and age, particularly in bars and restaurants.
It has inked a deal with London-based CreditLadder, which to date has reported some £1 billion in rent payments.

From: UK’s largest rent reporting platform reveals big distribution deal.

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When Apple announced it’s Vison Pro headset, may people commented on the the $3,499 launch price (comparing it to the cost of Meta’s Occulus headset) but I felt that is was not really that expensive in historical context and predicted that there would be plenty of people who will buy one to begin experimenting with it. Me, for example. Well, based on early order trends for the headset they seem to be flying off virtual shelves.

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Apple’s Vision Pro will probably sell fewer than 200,000 units, because of supply constraints on components, as well as the price tag. It “will be a hit with developers in 2024 and then consumers in 2025”, predicts Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities, an investment company.
The thing to watch in 2024 is what those developers find to do with the device. Smartphones took off only after the launch of apps that turned internet-connected phones from novelties into vital everyday tools. Headsets, used mostly for gaming, still lack compelling use cases for most people. But as programmers begin to play around with the Vision Pro, that could change. In the months ahead, tech-watchers will have their eyes on Apple’s new gadget—and it will have its four internal cameras looking right back at them.

From: The fight to control the headset market will intensify.

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When Tim Cook introduced Apple’s Vision Pro, he turned mixed reality into a category, not just a theory. Apple’s glossy marketing showed a new vision for the technology — one that prioritized mixed reality over virtual reality — and lifted Meta’s efforts.

From: Tim Cook’s Apple Has Been Meta’s Best Friend. Completely By Accident..

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Apple will start shipping its first mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, this year. Its killer feature is the highest-resolution display ever made for such a device. Will there be a killer app? It’s early, but the world’s most valuable company has made a bold bet that the answer is yes.

From: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2024 | MIT Technology Review.

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The ECB is planning two digital euros for retail payments, with one of them exclusively for offline use with holdings too held offline.

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

That sounds suboptimal to me, so let’s unpick what “offline” electronic cash really means.

 

I’m on a plane watching a random TV show that I never heard of before, it’s called Poker Face. It’s a crime show, loner who travels the Earth bringing justice, there’s a callback to Kung Fu via Pulp Fiction in episode 1. Anyway, the schtick is that there’s a woman with an ability to detect lies so she’s good at playing poker, I won’t give anything anyway except to say it has nice writing and some really good acting in it. But in episode 2 there’s a lovely character, a woman trucker who lives off grid and insist on working for cash only, won’t use cards and doesn’t trust Bitcoin. And there’s a scene where an auto-repair guy is inspecting $100 bills.

Anyway, I mention the show because it made me think, as I often do, about the relationship between money and privacy. The woman who wants privacy . 

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Tim Cook handed Meta a gift by insisting that Apple’s Messages synced poorly with Android.

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

I have to say this is true in our family of mixed Apple and Android users: we now have a family WhatsApp group (as it seems everyone does) and we use it all the time.

This makes me wonder, of course, about the implications for financial services. Let me begin by telling a true story.

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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.

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The state’s new law will force merchants to limit credit card surcharges and more clearly disclose them to consumers. If the businesses don’t, they could face a $500 penalty.

From: New York enacts surcharge law | Payments Dive.

 

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last month signed a law prohibiting merchants from imposing credit card surcharges that are more than what they are charged by the “credit card company” for such transactions.

From: New York enacts surcharge law | Payments Dive.

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It’s not clear to me what “the credit card card company” means here: I assume they mean, for example, Square or whoever it is that provides the actual service to the merchant rather than the credit card issuer, processor, network etc.

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Having just spent a few days in New York, I was curious to observe the new ordnance in action. I went a couple of times to