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So, I would like to propose another metaphor for the risks of artificial intelligence. I suggest that we think about A.I. as a management-consulting firm, along the lines of McKinsey & Company. Firms like McKinsey are hired for a wide variety of reasons, and A.I. systems are used for many reasons, too. But the similarities between McKinsey—a consulting firm that works with ninety per cent of the Fortune 100—and A.I. are also clear. Social-media companies use machine learning to keep users glued to their feeds. In a similar way, Purdue Pharma used McKinsey to figure out how to “turbocharge” sales of OxyContin during the opioid epidemic. Just as A.I. promises to offer managers a cheap replacement for human workers, so McKinsey and similar firms helped normalize the practice of mass layoffs as a way of increasing stock prices and executive compensation, contributing to the destruction of the middle class in America.

From Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey? | The New Yorker.

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Britain’s leaky outsourcing behemoth Capita is warning investors that the clean-up bill for its recent digital break-in will cost up to £20 million ($25.24 million).

At the end of March, the business was blindsided when criminals broke into its tech infrastructure and stayed inside for more than a week before Capita realized it was the victim of a “cyber incident.”

From Capita admits cost of March breach will be up to £20M • The Register.

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The boss of the banking industry body UK Finance has called on social media companies to reimburse victims of online fraud, accusing them of “profiting” from scams taking place on their platforms.

From Social media firms should reimburse online fraud victims, say UK bankers.

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By comparison, TfL said its cost of fare collection was 14.3% in the year ending in March of 2006. That’s a drop of 7.4 percentage points. It means that TfL cut its fare-collection costs as a percentage of fare revenue by a little more than half over 14 years.

From How Much Has Open-Loop Payments Reduced Transport for London’s Cost of Fare Collection? – Mobility Payments.

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Toyota Japan has apologized after admitting to leaving millions of customers’ vehicle details on the public internet for a decade.

The car maker said in a notice that it will notify about 2.15 million customers whose personal and vehicle information were left exposed to the internet after a “cloud misconfiguration” was discovered recently in April. Toyota said that the exposed data includes: registered email addresses; vehicle-unique chassis and navigation terminal numbers; the location of vehicles and what time they were there; and videos from the vehicle’s “drive recorder” which records footage from the car.

From Toyota Japan exposed millions of vehicles’ location data for a decade | TechCrunch.

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Reed Luhtanen, Executive Director of the U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC) wrote about their 2023 Spring Member Meeting and the interest of merchants such as Kroger and Walmart, who talked about how they are considering using faster payments and what else needs to happen to make desired use cases come to life. He noted that merchants see faster payments are important, as they want to provide customers with the options to pay the way they want, but they are also interested in them for improving other processes beyond POS, such as business-to-business payments and instant refund of customers. According to Matt Howarter, Senior Director Payments Services at Walmart, “Not having immediate refund capabilities for consumers is unacceptable. Over 45 percent of calls to our call center are ‘Where is my refund?’ Faster payments present the perfect opportunity to be able to leverage the technology to improve that customer experience.”

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PLANO, Texas, May 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Alkami Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALKT) (“Alkami”), a leading cloud-based digital banking solutions provider for banks and credit unions in the U.S., today announced the release of the 2023 Digital Banking Performance Metrics research report from Cornerstone Advisors.

Drawing on data from U.S. regional and community financial institutions with an average asset size of $4.4 billion, the Alkami-commissioned report reveals that mid-size banks and credit unions more than doubled their investments in digital transformation in fiscal year 2022, to nearly $425,000 per $1 billion in assets—up from an average of just over $200,000 per $1 billion in assets for fiscal 2021.

In turn, account holders are increasing their usage of key digital banking options:

Mobile deposit popularity is surging, with 52 percent of active digital banking users depositing checks via mobile devices in 2022, up from 37 percent the year before.
Loan applications are a big digital banking growth area with nearly half (47 percent) of all loan applications in 2022 coming via digital channels, up from just 36 percent in 2021.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments are seeing increased adoption with active P2P payment users as a percentage of digital banking users doubling from 12 percent to 25 percent in 2022.
Mobile payments are fragmented with 70 percent using more than one provider, and 49 percent using three or more. Three out of four Gen Z and Millennial consumers are using PayPal.

From Mid-size Financial Institutions More Than Double Their Digital Transformation Investment, New Research Finds.

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No, I don’t think it’s possible to have a real central bank digital currency that actually could be a replacement for cash, unless it functions off-line, because after all person-to-person off-line transfers, one of the definitive characteristics of cash

 

No, I don’t think it’s possible to have a real central bank digital currency. That actually could be a replacement for cash, unless it functions off-line because after all

 

The BIS. Has ready been looking at offline. As part of Project Polaris (ompiled in partnership with Consult Hyperion), the BIS Innovation Hub Nordic Centre today published a comprehensive handbook exploring key aspects of how central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could work for offline payments.

The ability to make payments offline means being able to use a CBDC without being connected to the internet, either temporarily or because of coverage limitations. Central banks considering the potential implementation of CBDCs with offline functionality must take into account a complex matrix of issues including security, privacy, likely risks, the types of solution, their maturity and applicability, and operational factors.

The handbook, c, addresses these issues as well as objectives for resilience, inclusion, cash resemblance, accessibility and other desired attributes.

From BIS publishes guide on offline CBDC use.

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For offline transactions, “neither the European Central Bank nor the payment services providers will gain access to personal transaction data,” though banks who distribute the currency can send financial crime authorities details of how accounts are funded if they suspect money laundering.

From European CBDC Bill Outlaws Interest, Large Holdings, Programmability, Leaked Version Shows:

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And always start from the position that any online messages you receive asking you to click on a link or input personal data are a scam, and apply the same careful logic to adverts on online platforms.

From It’s time social media platforms unfriended fraudsters | Financial Times.

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One large high street lender says fraud is now a more significant cost than its branch network.

From It’s time social media platforms unfriended fraudsters | Financial Times.

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