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As even mundane consumer products become smart and connected—new kinds of clothing, for instance, can now react to weather conditions and track mileage and vital signs—data-enabled learning will be used to enhance and personalize more and more offerings. However, their providers won’t build strong competitive positions unless the value added by customer data is high and lasting, the data is proprietary and leads to product improvements that are hard to copy, or the data-enabled learning creates network effects.

From When Data Creates Competitive Advantage:

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Consider Visa, Mastercard, and other key global players in noncash payments, which to date have resisted encouraging mobile payment, ostensibly unwilling to fully disrupt their credit card empires. If China is any guide, those companies could be headed for a “Kodak moment,”

From China’s New Innovation Advantage:

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They found that banks with more female directors faced lower and less-frequent fines for misconduct, saving those institutions $7.84 million a year, on average.

From Banks with More Women on Their Boards Commit Less Fraud:

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A key objective of China’s sovereign digital currency is to maintain financial stability should “something happen” to Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay, the two private platforms that dominate the nation’s vast digital payment market, the country’s central bank has said.

From China digital currency to ‘provide backup’ for Alipay, Tencent’s WeChat Pay if ‘something happens’ to internet giants | South China Morning Post.

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Morgan Stanley’s chief economist Chetan Ahya and his colleagues entitled an April 19 report “Digital Disruption: The Inevitable Rise of CBDC.” They observe:

“Even though central banks will try not to disrupt the banks, CBDC accounts will increase competition for customer deposits.
“Direct access to central banks will allow tech-enabled non-banks to offer payment services and digital wallets, capturing customer transaction data in the process.
“In combination with advances in AI, big tech will be able to use transaction data for credit assessment and cross selling.
“In the most disruptive case, banks lose deposit base, credit creation needs to be funded wholesale or by central bank.”

From China’s digital yuan displaces the dollar – Asia Times.

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As The Economist summed up the problem earlier this year, there are three big problems than prevent effect attacks on financial crime: a lack of transparency; a lack of collaboration; and a lack of resources.

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Banknotes and coins are used in only 3-4% of all transactions in Norway, the lowest level of cash usage in world, according to calculations by Norges Bank. Neighboring Sweden, another nearly cashless society, has also sounded the alarm amid concerns that the complete disappearance of paper money would pose a number of risks. The near obsolescence of cash has prompted central banks in both countries to explore their own digital currencies.

From Norway’s Cashlessness May Have Gone Too Far, Government Warns – Bloomberg:

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when one coal mine flooded and shut down in Xianjiang province over the weekend, one-third of all bitcoin’s computing power went offline

From The destructive green fantasy of the bitcoin fanatics | Financial Times:

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The idea that the likes of Monzo and Revolut can do anything banks can do but better is crumbling.

From The virus has crushed the challenger bank dream | Financial Times.

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Facebook Global Business Group VP Carolyn Everson said recently that they see payments as a “really important service that we need to provide to both businesses and consumers”.