Snippings

xxx

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home appears to have been the target of a second attack Sunday morning, two days after a 20-year-old man allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at the property, The Standard has learned.

From: Sam Altman’s house targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested | The San Francisco Standard.

xxx

xxx

The central bank has teamed up with technology firm Norbloc on the project, which it says will support financial institutions and fintechs to deliver faster, more reliable and secure digital onboarding for individuals and businesses, while substantially reducing turnaround times and operational costs.

From: Central Bank of the UAE rolls out e-KYC platform.

xxx

xxx

The idea of a ‘cancellation window’ works because humans are slow, cautious, and a bit lazy.

But now remove the human, and replace them with an AI agent. One that:

Has zero cost of effort
Can run parallel actions
Doesn’t hesitate
Doesn’t forget
Doesn’t ‘feel bad’ about cancelling
What then happens to hotel bookings? A “free cancellation for 28 days” policy stops being a convenience feature, and becomes an exploit for AI agents working on behalf of customers.

From: AI Agents will break every “Free Cancellation” policy you have.

xxx

xxx

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home appears to have been the target of a second attack Sunday morning, two days after a 20-year-old man allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at the property, The Standard has learned.

From: Sam Altman’s house targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested | The San Francisco Standard.

xxx

xxx

Even given the buzz around stablecoins, tokenized deposits are gaining more traction among banks.

Nineteen of the largest 50 U.S. banks are in some stage of developing a tokenized deposit strategy, compared to 15 for stablecoins, according to an analysis by American Banker. Four banks have a tokenized deposit product, compared to one bank that is issuing a stablecoin. Three are piloting tokenized deposits, with one piloting a stablecoin.

From: Why banks like tokenized deposits | PaymentsSource | American Banker.

xxx

xxx

The EU must strengthen strategic autonomy and operational resilience in payments in order to withstand external and technological threats. The EU’s over-dependency on a small number of non-European payment providers and solutions has exposed vulnerabilities which could be exacerbated by heightened geopolitical uncertainties and the risk of payment solutions being used for economic or political leverage. At the same time, technological advancements such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing expose cyber resilience and payments security to further threats. Recent geopolitical tensions underline the urgency for the EU to establish a more resilient and independent payments ecosystem capable of weathering external pressures.

From: The Eurosystem’s comprehensive payments strategy.

xxx

xxx

The consumer cannot cryptographically prove from their laptop that they are the person who signed the Cart Mandate on their phone. The protocol’s identity verification is bound to a physical object, not to the person.

From: (4) Agentic Protocol Fragility – AURA Labs.

xxx

xxx

While over 62% of UK banking customers now use at least one challenger bank, only 14% have fully abandoned traditional institutions, leaving the battlefield competitive as traditional banks try to retain loyalty through improved digital offerings.

From: UK banks have lost at least a third of market share to fintechs – Chris Skinner’s blog.

xxx

xxx

Mobile payments are becoming increasingly common – not least through Swish. In the Riksbank’s survey, 91 per cent have used Swish in the past month, up from 82 per cent in 2023. Services that integrate cards into mobile phones, such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, are also increasingly being used. Since 2018, those who used such a service in the last month have increased from 3 to 34 per cent. At the same time, the physical debit card is still one of the most widely used payment methods in Sweden. 85 per cent of respondents have paid using a physical debit card in the last month.

From: Payment habits in Sweden.

xxx

xxx

The paywall example is easy to grasp. It’s also the least interesting use case.
Think bigger:
A research agent pays for access to proprietary datasets—clinical trial results, satellite imagery, patent filings—and cross-references them against three other paid sources before delivering a synthesis
A development agent purchases compute and testing infrastructure, spins up environments, runs integration suites, tears them down
A workflow agent coordinates twelve services to complete a procurement process, paying each one as it delivers its piece
A video editing agent purchases stock footage, music licenses, and rendering credits—assembling a finished product from components that each have their own pricing and rights management
A delivery routing agent pays for real-time traffic data, weather updates, and route optimization APIs, re-purchasing updated feeds every few minutes as conditions change
A quality control agent purchases defect detection models, testing services, and certification verification from different providers across different jurisdictions
None of these transactions involve a human clicking “buy.” None of them map to a traditional checkout. None of them work with monthly subscriptions—the agent might use a service once for three seconds and never return.

From: The Intention Layer.

xxx