Snippings

xxx

The government is also exploring more ways to verify the identity of business owners. The London-based Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) has been developing a prototype of the Digital Company ID. Dozens of organizations have joined the effort, including biometric technology providers such as Daon, Yoti and OneID.
Research commissioned by CFIT has found that more than 80 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK would not mind paying for a Digital Company ID.

From: Mandatory identity verification for UK companies goes live | Biometric Update.

xxx

xxx

A further limiting factor is trust and control. UK consumers are wary of AIS, as the consent requested often is worded to give companies (TPPs – often with unfamiliar names) unlimited access to their account data for an unlimited or unspecified time for unclear reasons.

From: Push it – by Jeremy Light – Agenda: Payments.

xxx

xxx

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has launched a new Aadhaar app to make it easier and safer for citizens to store and share their digital ID. Available on both Android and iOS, the app complements the existing mAadhaar app, which mainly handles verification, downloads, and physical card requests, by offering a fully paperless, secure alternative for carrying Aadhaar digitally on smartphones. UIDAI aims to enhance convenience and reduce reliance on physical documents with this update.

The newly launched Aadhaar app by UIDAI is not meant to replace the existing mAadhaar app but rather complement it. Unlike mAadhaar, it doesn’t include options like downloading a digital Aadhaar card, ordering a PVC card, verifying contact details, or generating a virtual ID. Instead, it functions as a secure digital wallet where users can store, display, and share their Aadhaar credentials safely and conveniently.

From: UIDAI’s Latest Aadhaar App Turns Your Phone Into a Secure Digital ID Wallet: What’s New – Tech.

xxx

xxx

Cross-border finance is entering an always-on era. Stablecoin liquidity, institutional infrastructure, and regulatory clarity are aligning to create a global settlement environment that operates continuously across time zones. The line between fiat and digital liquidity is beginning to fade, replaced by an integrated network where both move seamlessly within the same execution layer.

From: The Future of Cross-Border Payments: Stablecoins, Settlement, and the Institutional Shift.

xxx

xxx

For comparison, Figure 1 shows Payment Initiation Service (PIS) users alongside AIS users. PIS users passed AIS in August 2023 and have kept climbing. The number of PIS users rose from 6.8m in September 2024 to 9.7m in September 2025, a 43% increase.

From: Push it – by Jeremy Light – Agenda: Payments.

xxx

xxx

The number of AIS users each month climbed from 5.7m in September 2024 to 7.6m in September 2025 a 32% increase. I forecast 8.1m users in December this year and 10.9m at the end of next year.

From: Push it – by Jeremy Light – Agenda: Payments.

xxx

xxx

Today, Brave Leo offers a new capability for cryptographically-verifiable privacy and transparency by deploying LLMs with NEAR AI Nvidia-backed Trusted Execution Environments (aka “TEEs”, see “Know more about TEEs” section below for details).

From: Verifiable Privacy and Transparency: A new frontier for Brave AI privacy | Brave.

xxx

Brave uses NEAR AI TEE-enabled Nvidia GPUs to ensure confidentiality and integrity by creating secure enclaves where data and code are processed with encryption.

These TEEs produce a cryptographic attestation report that includes measurements (hashes) of the loaded model and execution code.

Chip manufacturers have enabled TEEs on CPUs (traditionally) and GPUs (recently). The combination of TEE-enabled CPUs (e.g., Intel TDX) and TEE-enabled GPUs (e.g., Nvidia Hopper) enables end-to-end confidentiality, and integrity-preserving computation of LLM inference with minimal performance penalty.

xxx

There’s a new song doing the rounds, and in the immortal words of Kylie Minogue, you just can’t get it out of your head.
But what if it was created by a robot, or the artist themself is a product of artificial intelligence (AI)? Do streaming sites have an obligation to label music as AI-generated? And does it even matter, if you like what you hear?
A survey published last week suggested 97% of respondents could not spot an AI-generated song.

From: How can you tell if music is AI-generated?.

xxx

xxx

Japan now produces more nappies for incontinent adults than for infants.

From: David Runciman · Are we doomed? The End of the Species.

xxx

Charles Manus, Co-Founder of ClearBank

Hence, the evolution toward digital money represents not merely a transformation in how payments are made, but a seismic shift in the very infrastructure of our financial systems. Misconceptions about digital money, regulatory ambiguity and technological fragmentation threaten to delay its progress, yet the possibilities are too significant to ignore. Tokenisation is already redefining asset classes, turning traditional investments into liquid, 24/7 accessible instruments. Institutions such as BlackRock and central banks are paving the way, but the true potential lies in collaboration – across governments, financial entities, regulators and technology providers.

From: Why do we need digital money? – by Jonny Fry.

xxx