Snippings

xxx

More than two-thirds of the gains went to the 25 biggest institutions, according to the FDIC. And that was concentrated at the very top of the industry: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, the biggest U.S. banks by assets, grew much faster than the rest of the industry in the first quarter, according to company data.

From Banks have grown by $2 trillion in deposits since coronavirus first hit:

xxx

xxx

The first and most obvious risk from blanket age verification is consent fatigue. The simplest way to put it is this: if you hate cookie consent pop-ups, welcome to the wonderful world of age verification pop-ups. You will be required to prove your age and identity, linked to some official form of identification or via a third party intermediary, on every site you visit and every service you use. (Once you get through that process, then you can move on to cookie consents.)

The second risk is the chilling effect that these blanket age verification processes will have on your digital rights to privacy and freedom of expression. You will no longer be able to read some websites without proving your identity. You will no longer be able to say some things without proving your identity. You will no longer be able to seek certain information without proving your identity. And in the view of some age verification proponents, the only reason you would be opposed to any of that is if you have something to hide.

The third risk comes from the age verification and assurance processes themselves. These processes may collect many different pieces of personally identifiable information in order to profile you to establish your likely age. In doing so, they will create massive privatised databases of personal Internet browsing – databases which would be very appealing to governments or hackers.

From Age verification in the Online Safety Bill | Open Rights Group:

xxx

xxx

English Premier League champions Manchester City are to scrap physical season tickets in favour of mobile passes ahead of the new season.

From Man City to scrap physical season tickets – TheTicketingBusiness News:

xxx

The Bank Policy Institute (BPI), as you might expect, disagree.

BPI President and CEO Greg Baer released the following statement today on the White House’s executive order on competition:
“By any analysis, banking is among the most competitive, least concentrated industries in America

From BPI Statement on Competition Executive Order – Bank Policy Institute:

xxx

xxx

Ultimately, the goal should be faster, safer and cheaper payment systems, available to all. It is crucial that the natural monopoly of money and the public good of a payment system does not morph into private monopolies of digital giants.

From The time to embrace central bank digital currencies is now | Financial Times:

xxx

xxx

Here, a big issue arises: should CBDCs be used solely in wholesale transactions or also by retail customers? The answer has to be the latter. It has always been problematic that the benefit of holding safe government money goes to private banks, not the public (other than via cash). Now, this can and should change, to the public’s benefit.

From The time to embrace central bank digital currencies is now | Financial Times:

xxx

Diogo Mónica, co-founder and president of Anchorage.

“I think you’re gonna see the rise of the Fiat less bank in 2021, if not 2022,” Mónica said.

These companies will provide banking services, fundraise and pay salaries via stable coins. They provide apps on phones containing yield bearing stable coins as
checking accounts
. Individuals would then be able to leverage Visa cards to swipe and spend stable coins from the app wallet as well as the bank being able to natively settle via Visa.

“At no point does this institution ever, ever touch fiat,” Mónica said. “This is incredibly exciting.”

From Institutions’ Multicoin Crypto Investing Strategy, Anchorage Co-Founder:

xxx

Diogo Mónica, co-founder and president of Anchorage.

6) Robo advisors 
He also expects robot advisors to make it easier to play in DeFi markets, which are known for not being user friendly.

From Institutions’ Multicoin Crypto Investing Strategy, Anchorage Co-Founder:

xxx

xxx

Tokenised commercial bank money, which will be made available by commercial and savings banks, is to complement the two forms of digital central bank money, in particular to meet corporate demand arising from Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things. Tokenised commercial bank money could facilitate transactions based on “smart” – i.e. automated – contracts and thus increase process efficiency.

From Press Contact for the Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft:

xxx