A library of snippets
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That’s according to “The Instant Payments Transformation Guide,” a 2023 PYMNTS report done in collaboration with ACI Worldwide, which shows that 32.5% retailers are planning to add RTP capabilities to their checkout experience in the near future.
From US Retailers See Real-Time Payments as Crucial | PYMNTS.com.
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China hopes to be the exception. This month, the country adopted expansive rules requiring that manipulated material have the subject’s consent and bear digital signatures or watermarks, and that deepfake service providers offer ways to “refute rumors.”
But China faces the same hurdles that have stymied other efforts to govern deepfakes: The worst abusers of the technology tend to be the hardest to catch, operating anonymously, adapting quickly and sharing their synthetic creations through borderless online platforms. China’s move has also highlighted another reason that few countries have adopted rules: Many people worry that the government could use the rules to curtail free speech.
From As Deepfakes Flourish, Countries Struggle With Response – The New York Times:
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Do banks need several days to settle transactions across borders? Can the cost of remittances be lowered? As the US rolls out FedNow, its instant payments network, and considers a CBDC, what’s next in the world of payments innovation? Join the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center on Thursday, January 19th, from 10:00 am-11:00 am ET to discuss the next generation of international payments.
2023 is shaping up to be a critical year for innovation in the payment infrastructure, as more than 100 countries around the world are exploring CBDCs, many of which are wholesale cross-border projects. Additionally, traditional payment players are evolving their own platforms to adapt to the rise of blockchain technology.
Josh Lipsky, Senior Director of the GeoEconomics Center will give opening remarks. Ananya Kumar, Associate Director for digital currencies at the GeoEconomics Center, will be joined by Nick Kerigan, Head of Innovation Execution at SWIFT, Federico Grinberg, Economist in Payments, Currencies, and Infrastructures Division, Monetary and Capital Markets Department at the International Monetary Fund, Jesse McWaters, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Regulatory Advocacy at Mastercard and Nasreen Quibria, Senior Director and Head of Cross-Border Policy Engagement at Visa.
From The next generation of international payments: Faster, cheaper, safer? – Atlantic Council.
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Instead, FIS is also under pressure to consider selling parts of its business, maybe even its entire merchant business. “I am seeing some increasing investor demand for the merchant business to be spun out of FIS,” Kumar said. The Bank of America analysts echoed those sentiments.
From Investors press FIS, Fiserv for divestitures | Payments Dive.
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I know this because I was privileged to have Dr. Jion Guong Shen from JD Digits, a subsidiary of JD (China’s largest e-commerce business) on my panel about AI ethics and governance at the Innovate Finance Global Summit (IFGS) last year. I mention this panel because JD Digits, amongst other things, runs face recognition services for farmyard animals including cows and pigs. It turns out that pig face recognition, in particular, is a big business.
There are 700m pigs in China, and the productivity gains that farmers can obtain from ensuring that each pig is fed optimally, that sick pigs are kept away from the herd (and so on) are very significant. Pig farmers in Guangxi province trialling the technology found that it reduced costs and improved welfare outcomes for the pigs themselves. Apparently the face recognition system also goes some way to reigning in the wannabe Napoleons, as Dr. Shen explained that there are some “bully pigs” who try to obtain a disproportionate share of barnyard resources. The system can spot them chowing down when they shouldn’t be and flag for intervention.
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Now, the world’s biggest pest control group is planning to annihilate the pesky rodents by using facial recognition to track their habits.
Rentokil said its surveillance service, which live streams video of the vermin to its “central command centre” for real-time analysis using artificial intelligence, can help decide where and how to hunt the fast-breeding undesirables.
From Rentokil takes on the world’s rat problem with facial recognition | Financial Times.
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According to the results of the investigation thus far, Panzeri’s group was shockingly amateurish: They apparently received payment in cash, which they then stashed in private apartments; they held a conspiratorial meeting in a hotel that was full of surveillance cameras; and they made hundreds of telephone calls using unencrypted connections.
From A Secret Meeting in Suite 412: Inside the European Parliament Corruption Scandal – DER SPIEGEL:
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Attention is like #cryptocurrency: a worthless token that is only valuable to the extent that you can trick or coerce someone into parting with "fiat" currency in exchange for it. You have to "monetize" it – that is, you have to exchange the fake money for real money. 63/
— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) January 21, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager says that the European digital identity will enable “renting a flat or opening a bank account” in any EU country.
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In light of the advancements in digital assets and the pressures exerted on states, Russia and Iran are now exploring the development of a joint stablecoin that would be backed by gold.
The executive director of the Russian Association of the crypto industry and blockchain, Alexander Brazhnikov, revealed that the Central Bank of Iran is considering the creation of a stablecoin with the Russian Federation as a means of payment in transactions involving international trade, according to the local Russian news outlet Vedomosti.
Brazhnikov said that the coin’s value would be tied to gold (i.e., a stablecoin). Astrakhan is a free-trade zone where Russia has started accepting Iranian merchandise; therefore, the coin would be usable there.
From Russia and Iran explore launch of joint cryptocurrency backed by gold.
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The secretary as confidential advisor has never had a place on organizational charts.
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