Snippings

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Low-key KYC: When you sign up for a new Fintech App after providing some basic personal information and account information, it has become common in the US to “connect your account with Plaid” during the enrollment process. You see this in everything from Robinhood’s onboarding to the earliest stage Fintech apps. Consumers benefit from a much faster enrollment process, and the Fintech company can validate that “you are who you say you are” in the same way as if you used your bank statement as proof of address and identity.

From Fintech 🧠 Food – 17th Oct 2021 – Moonpay raises $400m, Bolt $389m and why open banking is bigger in the US than Europe – by Simon Taylor – Fintech Brain Food 🧠:

So why not do this with adult sites? Well, the difference is of course that when you sign up for a new brokerage account, you want them to know who you are. But when you sign up for a new webcam account, you absolutely don’t want them to know who you are.

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Who should police the internet? For some time now the question has tied companies, regulators and campaigners in knots. Social networks spend billions moderating content posted on their platforms, but are still criticised either for not removing enough toxic material or for stifling free speech. They are not the only ones to grapple with the problem. Banks and credit-card companies too are finding themselves playing a bigger role in what is said and done in the public square—to their, and their customers’, discomfort.

The boundary of censorship is now being extended further, into the pornography business. From October 15th adult websites worldwide will have to verify the age and identity of anyone featured in a picture or video, as well as the id of the person uploading it.

From Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web | The Economist:

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Sir Jon Cunliffe, Bank of England Deputy Governor for Financial Stability a member of the Financial Policy and Monetary Policy Committees

Unbacked cryptoassets make up nearly 95% of the $2.3 trillion. They are essentially non-replicable strings of computer code that can be owned and transferred without intermediaries. Bitcoin, of course, is the most prominent example, but there are now nearly eight thousand unbacked cryptoassets in existence. These have no intrinsic value – that is to say there are no assets or commodities behind them: the value of the cryptoasset is determined solely by the price a buyer is prepared to pay at any given moment.

From Is ‘crypto’ a financial stability risk? – speech by Jon Cunliffe | Bank of England:

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A further important element of the CPMI-IOSCO guidance covers governance and makes clear that a stablecoin arrangement needs to be governed by one or more discrete legal entities with accountability for the operation of the arrangement and for the management of risk.

From Is ‘crypto’ a financial stability risk? – speech by Jon Cunliffe | Bank of England:

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DIGIT Lab is a five year programme providing research insights, knowledge frameworks and practical techniques to accelerate digital transformation in the UK. The Centre works with large established organizations (LEOs) to reimagine them for the digital age – in ways that go beyond the digitalization of current products and practices. The Centre combines active research, education and industrial co-development to tackle key issues.

From The DIGIT Lab Launch, 21st September – The DIGIT Lab:

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Bank of Jamaica Governor Richard Byles

The CBDC forms part of the BOJ’s drive to get Jamaicans, especially those without traditional bank accounts, to own and start using digital wallets regularly.

From Central bank targets large merchants for digital wallets | Business | Jamaica Gleaner:

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Mikako Fujita had been working as a barista for seven years when she began noticing, sometime in 2017, that it was becoming harder for her to do simple tasks like putting her hair up in a ponytail.

Not long after, she was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, an incurable motor neuron disease that destroys the nerve cells that control muscles throughout the body.

Four years later Fujita is still serving coffee to customers in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district. The only difference is that now she does it from her home 300 km away in Japan’s central Aichi Prefecture.

From Japan’s ‘work-via-robot’ cafe helps disabled workers shine – Nikkei Asia:

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Remote work has become more widespread due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is not easy for those with severe illnesses or disabilities to jump into office work if they lack prior experience. That is why Ory Lab aimed for a workplace based more on physical labor and interaction with customers.

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Crypto technologies offer a prospect of radical improvements in financial services. However, while the financial stability risks are still limited, their current applications are now a financial stability concern for a number of reasons.

From Is ‘crypto’ a financial stability risk? – speech by Jon Cunliffe | Bank of England:

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Rita Liu, formerly of Alipay and now of Mode, links open banking and QR codes by saying that “QR codes can revolutionise the front end as they have in the East, while Open Banking can revolutionise the back end”. This is a characteristically accurate analysis of the opportunities for bringing added value to merchants. As she highlights, the direct flow of information between consumers and merchants creates a simplified, cost-effective value chain, and it can transform merchants’ engagement with customers by leveraging data to offer a truly personalised experience. This is precisely what Australia’s domestic debit network Eftpos hope to achieve with their launch of the eQR service.

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Eftpos Australia has signed up Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Coles, Woolworths, Azupay, Beem It and Merchant Warrior to support the rollout of its new QR payments platform, eQR.

From Eftpos signs up banks, fintechs and merchants for eQR roll out:

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As with other retailers, one of the attractions for supermarket chains is that their app can combine payments, loyalty and spend tracking in one and a simple quick QR scan is all that is needed to get everything done.

From Forget Contactless, We’re Going Contact-Free:

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Novogratz describes himself as a “giant alarm ringer” about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) because of his concerns around governments having access to individual spending data. Instead, he prefers the idea of central banks laying out the framework of how stablecoins should operate and then having the private industry create tokens that meet those criteria and then have them run on multiple public blockchains.

From Mike Novogratz on Crypto Excess That’s ‘a Recipe for Disaster’ and Stablecoins.

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