A library of snippets
xxx
Evans and Partners analyst Matthew Wilson says there is a long-term risk that Apple’s popularity with the young in particular leaves banks relegated to being disenfranchised manufacturers.
From It’s ‘Silicon Valley vs the banks’: Apple’s big threat in finance:
xxx
xxx
In Singapore, autonomous robots are now rambling around in the town center, keeping a watchful eye on what the government of the city-state defines as “undesirable social behaviour,” including smoking in prohibited public areas or driving scooters on footpaths.
From Singapore deploys street robots to check bad behaviour of people | Investvine.
xxx
xxx
Daniel Hodson, former chief of Nationwide Building Society and the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange, told City A.M. that any UK central bank digital currency must be instead geared toward the financial services sector.
From City warns London’s finance crown at risk if UK doesn’t offer digital Sterling : CityAM.
xx
He’s right, of course. We must launch the wholesale CBDC first. But note that the architecture and implementation of a wholesale CBDC has absolutely nothing to do with the architecture and implementation of a retail CBDC, we have plenty of time to think about the best way to build the retail infrastructure.
xxx
A US woman who broke into a credit union’s computer system and destroyed more than 20 gigabytes of data in retaliation for being fired, has pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn court.
From Fired credit union employee gets revenge by wiping 20GB of data.
xxx
xxx
Most traditional banks and credit unions might not even be aware of the fragmenting of relationships caused by non-traditional competition. This is because most institutions simply monitor lost accounts, as opposed to changes in activity, balances and other indicators of lost share of wallet. According to Bain & Company, ‘Most defection in banking consists of people obtaining credit cards, loans, or other products elsewhere, but not closing their original account altogether. Maintaining a healthy base of primary customers may disguise the dire reality of declining share of wallet.”
Hidden Attrition:
Most customers don’t close accounts when they move relationships. Instead, they divert their loyalty to alternative providers that offer more value.
Making matters worse, customer churn is a lagging indicator, meaning the loss has already happened, and it’s just a measurement of the damage inflicted. Trying to recover these customers is often a money-losing strategy.
From Banking Share of Wallet Threatened By Hidden Attrition.
xxx
xxx
Some prefer to let the chips fall as they may. That doesn’t include Google any longer.
Following in the footsteps of Silicon Valley rival Apple, the company plans to start using its own in-house CPU chips in its line of laptops and tablets by 2023.
From Following Apple’s Lead, Google to Take Chip Production In-House | The Motley Fool.
xxx
Gary Gensler, chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), says that while he is “technology neutral”, crypto assets were no different than any others when it came to such public policy imperatives as investor protection, guarding against illicit activity and maintaining financial stability.
I was listening to the “Pomp” podcast in which he interviewed David Marcus, who leads Facebook’s financial services drive. It was an interesting discussion but I was surprised when at one point in the interview Mr. Pompliano says that he thinks that people have underestimated the importance of the wallet. I have certainly never fallen into this category and my analysis of the launch of Facebook’s “Libra” initiative, as it was initially called, was that the play was all about the wallet: the day that it was announced I said that “identity is at the heart of the Libra proposition, if you ask me“.
xxx
Money Box hears from the successful businessman who had half a million pounds stolen in three months through a Bitcoin fraud. He wants to warn people that “if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone”
From BBC Radio 4 – Money Box, Bitcoin fraud totalling £500k:
I listened to this typically excellent edition of MoneyBox with my head in my hands. The victim of the fraud actually said “I saw it on YouTube so it look legitimate”.
xxx
But if money is to be identity-based rather than token-based and fungible, this introduces a whole new set of ethical dilemmas and social questions, which aren’t really being asked at the moment on a wide enough social level.
The conversations we should be having relate to who do we as a society really entrust with our personal data? The current choice includes private companies like Facebook, highly regulated private institutions like banks, “independent” central banks, government-directed central banks, a bit of everyone or nobody at all.
xxx
Snippings