Snippings

Australia moves a step closer to establishing an economy wide Digital ID system with the Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher announcing the release of proposed legislation this week. Once legislated, business will be able to rely on Digital ID in more scenarios, reducing the need to provide copies of sensitive documents. The roadmap includes four phases:-

Phase 1 will legislate for Digital ID, establish the rules, the regulator and protections and continue expanding use across government and also the accreditation of public and private providers.

Phase 2 is to allow state and territory Digital IDs to be used to access a Commonwealth services. 

Phase 3 will be to allow myGovID to be used in the private sector; for example, myGovID could be used to open a new bank account with an Australian bank, or verify you when signing a telco contract or real estate lease.

Phase 4 will allow accredited private sector Digital IDs to verify you when accessing some government services.

As Michael Miebach, the Mastercard CEO, pointed out in the Harvard Business Review, ID verification can be used to increase privacy, not take it away. He illustrates the splint with the canonical example that if someone needed to confirm their age to buy alcohol, they wouldn’t need to share all the information on a typical driver’s license — name, age, address, photo. Using appropriate and well-designed digital identity infrastructure, confirmation would exist as a simple yes or no question — is this person older than 21 or not? And that’s the only information someone would need to share: not the data (a date of birth) but the relevant credential (IS-OVER-21).

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But it was the prospect of Gen AI for wealth management and financial planning that really captivated people’s attention. Over a third of consumers generally say they’re interested in Gen AI helping them to manage their finances, rising to more than 50% for those respondents under the age of 50.

From Marqeta: over half of people want Gen AI help with finances | FinTech Magazine.

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The new advances in AI therefore have real potential – not for a radical transformation of the payment sector which, being highly regulated, interoperable, and standardised, must comply with rigorous standards – but by offering us new levers for improvement that will make purchasing and payment even simpler and more secure, while optimising costs, efficiency, and quality of service for users.

From How will AI boost the business of payments players.

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Certainly the system is bad for Americans who don’t have points-earning cards. They pay higher prices on ordinary goods and services but don’t get the points, effectively subsidizing the perks of card users, who tend to be wealthier already.

From: Airlines Are Just Banks Now – The Atlantic.

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For the airlines, this is a great deal. They incur no costs from points until they are redeemed—or ever, if the points are forgotten. This setup has made loyalty programs highly lucrative. Consumers now charge nearly 1 percent of U.S. GDP to Delta’s American Express credit cards alone. A 2020 analysis by the Financial Times found that Wall Street lenders valued the major airlines’ mileage programs more highly than the airlines themselves. United’s MileagePlus program, for example, was valued at $22 billion, while the company’s market cap at the time was only $10.6 billion.

From: Airlines Are Just Banks Now – The Atlantic.

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David was able to upload screenshots of women whose pornography he had watched and get photos of them from elsewhere on the web, a trail that sometimes led him to their legal names. From there, he could know where they lived and find them in the real world,

From: How a ‘Digital Peeping Tom’ Unmasked Porn Actors | WIRED.

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Over 50% of younger consumers want Generative AI to help them with managing their finances, according to a new report published today by Marqeta

From Marqeta: over half of people want Gen AI help with finances | FinTech Magazine.

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n recent years, south-east Asia has emerged as a transport hub for this sanctioned oil. Tankers carrying oil from Iran, Russia or Venezuela will meet up with other vessels close to the region’s busy shipping lanes and perform ship-to-ship-transfers. The oil in the new vessel will then be rebadged as coming from a legitimate source and be sent off to be sold elsewhere.

Satellite imagery reveals that such transfers are happening multiple times a day

From How a burnt out, abandoned ship reveals the secrets of a shadow tanker network | Oil | The Guardian.

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The key asset in all of this is data. Payments generate roughly 90% of banks’ useful customer data — information about who is buying what, how much, and when. This is creating new revenue streams for payments businesses that can monetise that data, yet also exposes them to issues and risks related to data privacy.

From Payments 2025 and Beyond | PwC.

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