Snippings

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The big incumbents definitely need to be “cognisant” of what Apple is doing, says Boe Hartman, former technology chief of Goldman’s retail division that built the infrastructure for Apple Card. But he doesn’t expect to see Apple roll out the Bank of Cupertino any time soon.

“Banks are rooted in constant regulation, and you have to prove that you’re living up to that regulation every day,” he says. “Someone like Google or Apple just wants the experience to service people, to make people more sticky in their ecosystem. That’s what they want. They don’t want to deal with the regulatory stuff. That’s hard and complex.”

From Will Apple take a big bite out of the banks? | Financial Times:

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Data poisoning happens when attackers tamper with raw data used by the AI/ML model.

From AI for security is here. Now we need security for AI | VentureBeat:

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A spokesperson for TikTok wrote via email: “Our community guidelines are clear that we do not allow content that facilitates the sale of counterfeit goods. We take the protection of intellectual property very seriously, and creators found to be selling counterfeit products on our platform may be removed.”

From Why young shoppers are cool with counterfeits | Financial Times:

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Meanwhile, the #dupes and #Reps (short for replicas) hashtags have around two billion views each and the Tik Tok videos often feature detailed reviews of luxury counterfeits and where to find them, together with handy guides on “how to never get a haul seized” by customs.

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Compliance is a competitive advantage. Payments are easy; edge cases are hard. Lending is easy; getting paid back is hard. And everything is compliance. Getting into the detail, wrestling with complexity, and surfacing that as a clean API or user experience is the essence of Fintech and why I love this industry.

From (2) Fintech 🧠 Food – Do we need narrower banks?:

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BankID is Sweden’s most common e-ID. Out of 10.4 million Swedes, around 8.4 million use BankID with the vast majority choosing its mobile version. In 2022, it was used no less than 6.7 billion times, including identifications as well as signing. The company currently has 6,150 businesses, authorities and organizations offering the service for identification.
Users will be able to show the new digital ID while buying alcohol and other goods that require age verification as well as collecting parcels at the post office. However, the ID will not replace traditional identification while traveling within Schengen countries or dealing with the government.
“The digital ID is a solution which BankID is offering but it is up to every individual government agency and company if they want to accept it,” BankID’s spokesperson Charlotte Patakytold told local media. “It is not possible to use it when you are flying out of the country. For that you’ll need a passport.”
Users that want to present their digital ID card will have to verify their identity in the BankID app with a valid Swedish passport or national ID card. Companies will be able to verify the digital ID by scanning a QR code in the app. BankID also added biometrics support last year.
The Swedish government recently issued a report stating that the introduction of a national e-id with the highest level of security is “extremely urgent.” In December 2022, the country formed an inquiry into developing a government-issued digital ID with results set to be published in May 2024.
BankID is run by the company Finansiell ID-Teknik BID, which in turn is owned by seven banks

From Sweden’s BankID launching new digital ID card | Biometric Update.

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Chinese startups and tech investors are notoriously trend-driven, and many jumped on the metaverse bandwagon after Meta’s supposed pivot, trying to launch homegrown versions or to integrate virtual or mixed reality elements into consumer products. But the Chinese government, which exerts an enormous influence over the country’s tech sector, was also quick to get in on the metaverse, backing technologies it sees as strategic and setting rules to govern what can go on in this next iteration of cyberspace. That means that what’s emerging in China is very different from the metaverses envisioned in the West. While the metaverses proposed by Meta, Microsoft, and Decentraland are aimed at consumers, China’s virtual worlds are more about putting tech to work in supporting the economy.

From China’s Metaverse Is All About Work | WIRED.

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In December 2021, China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, a body that, among other things, is responsible for investigating corruption within the Communist Party, published the state’s definition of the metaverse. It declared that the metaverse is composed of three technologies—digital twins (detailed virtual representations of real-world objects), mixed reality (spaces that merge digital and physical experiences), and the blockchain. But in a demonstration of the Party’s willingness to shut down sectors that it feels run counter to its long-term vision, the authorities had already knocked down that third pillar by effectively banning cryptocurrencies in September 2021.

From China’s Metaverse Is All About Work | WIRED.

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San Francisco-based IDPartner is building an identity verification network that allows banks to offer single sign-on authentication services to customers.

Doing so would let those customers leverage their banking credentials to sign in to third-party websites.
CEO Rod Boothby says participating banks also benefit by deepening relationships with customers.

From ID verification startup IDPartner Systems raises $3.1M.

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I’m not a fan of the U.S.’s approach. Banking authorities don’t say: hey, Bank of America, we’d prefer you use an Oracle database instead of an Azure one for your IOUs. Likewise, they shouldn’t get to say: hey, Bank of America, don’t use an Ethereum database instead of an Oracle one.

Mind you, unlike the crypto idealists, I don’t think blockchains are the revolution that they are often made out to be. They’re just another database, one with some quirky characteristics, so let banks figure out on their own whether they are a worthwhile medium or not. There’s a high likelihood that blockchain-based dollars won’t be successful with customers, but banks won’t really know until they experiment.

One last point on this topic. In the same vein of substrate neutrality, if banks are going to use some sort of blockchain to issue dollars, they should be required to subject their blockchain-based dollars to the same anti-money laundering checks to which their non-blockchain based dollars are beholden. 
That means identifying all their users. This would be a departure from current practice among blockchain-based dollar issuers (like Tether and Circle) whereby they do KYC on just some users. A defence of substrate agnosticism suggests that the current KYC-lite touch isn’t enough.

From Moneyness: A quick defence of digital substrate agnosticism (or, why banks should be able to issue stablecoins).

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SRC has no chance with large merchants like Amazon (one click), Apple (ApplePay), …etc (see blog). Conversion rate is far more important to retailers than the carrot of a liability shift. US issuers don’t have the data to manage fraud (ex SKU data or historical consumer behavior) and consumers “log in” to these platforms far more often than they do their banks.

From SRC – Why Now and What is the Opportunity? | Noyes Payments Blog.

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