A library of snippets
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Incentivise banks and building societies to prevent APP scams – because responsibility for allowing fraudulent payments is the responsibility of both the sending and receiving banks or building societies.
From CP22/4: Authorised push payment (APP) scams: Requiring reimbursement | Payment Systems Regulator:
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Alongside a great many foolish things that have been said about the future, only one really clever thing stands out. It was a “law” coined by a Stanford University computer scientist and long-time head of the Institute for the Future by the name of Roy Amara. He said that we tend to overestimate the impact of a new technology in the short run, but we underestimate it in the long run. Quite when he said it and in what context is not clear but colleagues suggest he was articulating it from some time in the 1960s or 1970s.
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Some may be delaying their investment in the DeFi space out of a belief that the advent of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) will consolidate the market. While nothing is set in stone, OpenZeppelin believes a reasonable observer might instead anticipate a possible future in which different stablecoins respond to different market needs. It is possible that central banks will design CBDCs with more limited functionality and composability than those issued on public blockchains using flexible smart contract designs.
In such a scenario, more programmable assets—such as A$DC—would open up new investment opportunities by enabling token integration with other smart contracts. Such assets would require expert-level security reviews, but they would spur innovative uses that less functional CBDCs would not be able to match.
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The chief executive of the Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corporation has doubled down on using facial recognition at its venues to bar lawyers suing the group from attending events.
From Madison Square Garden CEO doubles down on use of facial recognition tech | CNN Business.
Now, while many people may well think that a system for barring lawyers from events might be to the greater good, it does raise troubling issues.
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Payments monetization for software companies means embedding payments functionality (including payment acceptance, card payments, account-to-account payments, and alternative payment methods) into other business management functions like accounting, working capital, and supplier management. We observe AP automation and spend management SaaS companies like Avidxchange and Bill.com effectively monetizing payments, with 67% and 37% of 2022 YTD revenue coming from payments, respectively (Figure 2).
From Thoma Bravo’s Acquisition of Coupa Highlights the Value of B2B SaaS and Embedded Payments.
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There are many European alternative payment methods (APMs) that are built on A2A rails. Most of these schemes are owned by bank coalitions, but not all (Trustly and Sofort/Klarna being notable private examples). Some of these schemes date back to the relatively early days of e-commerce (c. 2005) and were founded to displace offline bank transfers (e.g., paper Giro payments). Other similar schemes were founded more recently (c. 2015), spurred by the development of mobile apps and mobile commerce. Many of these schemes are thriving, but not all. Some have failed, notably PayM in the UK and Paylib in France. Other schemes such as GiroPay/PayDirekt in Germany and Bancomat Pay in Italy, struggle to find traction and scale. Each of these schemes had the backing of major banks (a catalyst for success) but failed to achieve uptake by consumers who are otherwise well-served by cards, PayPal, or invoicing/BNPL within those respective markets.
Tink, the WealthTech company has urged lenders to prioritise upgrading creditworthiness assessment models to ensure more accurate lending decisions. In a survey of financial executives, it found that 68% of UK lenders have tightened affordability criteria since the pandemic. However, there are still blind spots in credit assessments: 41% of people have been denied credit due to the inability to verify identity or legal status, and 35% have been denied due to the inability to access payment history.
From Traditional lending models not ‘fit for purpose’ – Tink claims.
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The video was produced in 2002 and it can be easy to forget that a world existed before the introduction of smartphones.
“At Accenture, our researchers developed a prototype called Real World Showroom. Using a wireless PDA equipped with an RFID reader, I can query everyday objects around me, such as a tie my friend is wearing,” Accenture’s Joe Tobolski says in the video.
From Video From 2002: RFID Chips Were Supposed to Turn Everyone Into a Salesperson — Paleofuture.
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The Bank of England (BoE) and Britain’s finance ministry think the UK is likely to need to create a central bank digital currency (CBDC) later this decade, the Telegraph newspaper reported on Saturday, citing an unreleased government report.
“On the basis of our work to date, the Bank of England and HM Treasury judge that it is likely a digital pound will be needed in the future,” the Telegraph quoted BoE Governor Andrew Bailey and finance minister Jeremy Hunt as saying in the joint report.
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Former T-Mobile store owner netted $25 million from 5-year scheme which included tricking employees into resetting passwords. He used phishing emails and social engineering, and tricked those working at the T-Mobile IT Help Desk into resetting employee passwords, allowing him access to the internal system.
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