A library of snippets
The UK’s payment backbone went down for six hours.
The RTGS backbone settles more than £750 billion on average every working day, with peaks reaching more than £1 trillion in autumn last year, according to the Bank.
Chaps processes about £350 billion a day, including banks paying one another large sums.
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Open financial data is a critical enabler of financial inclusion.
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Although the semi-retired couple, who wished to keep their surname private, were aware they had been part of the Medibank and Latitude data breaches, they remained unsure how the perpetrators got their licence and passport details.
From: How $370,000 was stolen from Melbourne couple: ‘It was a nightmare’ | Seniors Discount Club.
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My elderly parents in-law had their joint bank account closed by HSBC in December. We don’t really understand why but HSBC said it was because of ‘safeguarding issues’.
From: CRANE ON THE CASE: My vulnerable in-laws got ‘debanked’ by HSBC | This is Money.
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Offered a basic bank account
Having never travelled abroad or driven a car, your mother-in-law did not have any valid identification to open a new account.
You were forced to go through the ridiculous rigmarole of getting her a learner driver’s licence
From: CRANE ON THE CASE: My vulnerable in-laws got ‘debanked’ by HSBC | This is Money.
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While the Brazilian Open Banking agenda doesn’t explicitly touch on VRP, the country’s central bank intends to introduce it through PIX, the local peer-to-peer payment solution akin to the US FedNow and India’s UPI. The initiative, referred to as “PIX Automático” (Automatic PIX), is set to launch as early as April 2024 with the regulations expected by September 2023. A leaked demo of the services shows approval requests as push notifications to the consumer’s bank app, where they will manage their VRP relationships.
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Programmable Wallets is designed for developers to tailor their wallets to the UX that best fits their app. Depending on their use case, developers can choose the best wallet security and control configurations. Some developers and enterprises may prefer to host an MPC node, while others will choose to get started quickly with Circle-hosted MPC nodes.
From: Circle launches Programmable Wallets as Part of its Web3 Services Line.
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The Illusion of Reality: Vision Pro can also switch to full virtual reality, arguably encapsulating the third phase of Baudrillard’s simulacra: the replacement of reality. In this phase, the virtual environment doesn’t merely distort reality but replaces it entirely. This new “reality” is not a reference to anything real but is a simulation that stands on its own. In the hyperreal world of Vision Pro, one could argue, reality is no longer a prerequisite.
From: Apple’s Vision Pro: The Precarious New Age of Hyperreality | Psychology Today.
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It’s very much in an employer’s interest to have more productive workers. But given the risks that accompany AI, most companies have been unwilling to give workers a green light. Some, like Blake’s insurance company, fear AI platforms might gain access to sensitive customer information, which businesses are legally obliged to protect. Others worry that employees will inadvertently divulge trade secrets in their prompts, or rely on error-prone responses from a chatbot without checking the machine’s work.
From: Employees Are Secretly Using ChatGPT to Get Ahead at Work.
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To take advantage, content farms have sprung up where low-paid humans churn out low-quality content to attract ad revenue. These types of websites already have a name: “made for advertising” sites. They use tactics such as clickbait, autoplay videos, and pop-up ads to squeeze as much money as possible out of advertisers. In a recent survey, the Association of National Advertisers found that 21% of ad impressions in their sample went to made-for-advertising sites. The group estimated that around $13 billion is wasted globally on these sites each year.
From: Next-gen content farms are using AI-generated text to spin up junk websites | MIT Technology Review.
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For the first time, voters will be able to use their Singpass app in place of the physical National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) to verify their identity at polling stations in the upcoming presidential election, which is to be held by Sept 13.
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Snippings