A library of snippets
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The government of South Australia is boasting about the high compliance rate for a new law that requires the use of facial recognition in many gambling establishments. The law went into effect in December, and specifically applies to any gaming venues that have more than 30 poker machines, where at least one of those machines has the ability to accept traditional bank notes.
From South Australia Clamps Down On Problem Gambling With Facial Recognition Tech:
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There is less danger of a panopticon where digital money balances are issued by a plurality of profit‐seeking competing banks and other private firms. Competing banks do not deny access to certain customers based on suspicions about those customers’ loyalty to the bank.7 Unless a customer requests it, banks do not share client account information with rival firms. Where there is suspicion of a crime, banks may be compelled to share information with the police.
From Should the State or the Market Provide Digital Currency? | Cato Institute:
I agree, of course, and have been consistent in my view that federated strong pseudonymity is the best way to organise the digital cash infrastructure necessary to support a digital currency.
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“Any doofus can be a cybercriminal now,” said Sergei A. Pavlovich, a former hacker who served 10 years in prison in his native Belarus for cybercrimes. “The intellectual barrier to entry has gotten extremely low.”
From Secret Chats Show How Cybergang Became a Ransomware Powerhouse – The New York Times:
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Square, Stripe, Amazon, PayPal and Shopify are in an arms race right now, using partnerships and acquisitions to build their defences against the banks and their lending businesses. In a recent (excellent) piece on this here in Forbes, Ron Shevlin recommends that banks fight back against the masses forces of embedded finance by capturing adjacencies, but I wonder if this is really viable.
Paul Stoddart, President of New Payments Platforms at Mastercard, made an interesting presentation at this year’s Payments Canada Summit. He was talking about the future of payments and after a quick world tour looking at the state of implementation of real-time payments, he went on to highlight three trends that will shape payments across the next generation: open banking, digital currency and digital identity. Paul knows what he is talking about, so I was particularly interested in his comments on the need for “inclusive identity”.
Are digital currencies really, as Bank of America Securities said, “crypto kryptonite”?
(their words: I would have gone with “cryptonite”)
BofA Securities points out that there is a huge and valuable prize for private-sector players from outside the banking sector if they can seize a larger piece of the payments’ action—a treasure trove of customer data that is not being fully exploited by the banks.
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In a letter to The Economist this week, Shann Turnbull writes about the Australian welfare card, saying that the government there provides “cost-free debit cards” and that “as a result many people on welfare no longer need a bank account”. While I strongly agree that bank accounts are not necessary for financial inclusion, I am not so sure that the Australian example should be followed. As far as I am aware, in fact, there is no evidence that it is a good solution to the specific problems that Australia faces and research shows that it does not work anyway.
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Smart contracts’ selling points of flexibility and efficiency could be, at the same time, their biggest challenge to institutional adoption. In the same way that DeFi offers multiple avenues for users to take advantage of their yields and value propositions, hackers also rely on that flexibility to conduct attacks. For example, hackers can borrow from one protocol while swapping other tokens in a different protocol and follow this indirect chain of transactions and exploits consecutively.
From Smart Contract Risks and Mitigation in DeFi: A Deep Dive by Outlier Ventures | CoinMarketCap.
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As for Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti said the city has taken a different approach: Instead of banning the practice, the city has tried to help small businesses transition to a digital-first model. The program is called LA Optimized, a citywide initiative that helps business owners build their web presence and accept payments online.
From Many businesses may keep the cash-free model they started in the pandemic – Marketplace:
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“We are a very high volume restaurant,” Phan said. “For a customer to be fluffling around with their wallet, maybe some even trying to give you the precise change … if you can just tap your phone, you’re done, you’re out, and we can attend to the next customer.”
From Many businesses may keep the cash-free model they started in the pandemic – Marketplace:
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Snippings