Snippings

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“There is one Alipay everyone uses and dozens of credit cards that do not distinguish themselves from each other,” said [a Beijing-based finance executive]. “Who do you think has more bargaining power?”

From Jack Ma’s Ant demands bigger fees to rebuild valuation after pulled IPO | Financial Times:

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Merchants in China pay a fee on each transaction made using Alipay, which is split between the fintech, the customer’s bank and Unionpay, the country’s card services company. Alipay’s share of this fee has been increasing while that of the banks has been shrinking.

From Jack Ma’s Ant demands bigger fees to rebuild valuation after pulled IPO | Financial Times:

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Unbanked is not the problem, and banks are not the solution

The CEO of PayPal, Dan Schulman, has said that one of the benefits of digital currency is inclusion and that the adoption of such digital alternatives to cash would benefit millions of unbanked Americans. But why is this? Why would the use of digital cash help people who are excluded?

The millions of Americans who are unbanked (or underbanked) are not in that position because there is a shortage of banks. Quite the reverse, in fact. America has thousands of banks. So clearly a lack of banks isn’t the problem. There must be some other problem. Why don’t the millions of unbanked people use PayPal instead? 

 

 

As Wired magazine pointed out, basic bank accounts (which are mandated by the UK government) are accessible to those with poor credit histories, while challenger banks including Revolut and Monzo do not usually ask potential customers for proof of address in order to open an account. So it seems reasonable to ask why almost two million British adults do not have a bank account.

Jamaican central bank plans digital currency, but not blockchain – Ledger Insights – enterprise blockchain

A decision was made not to use blockchain, primarily based on the ease of integration with the Bank’s real-time gross settlement system (RTGS), rather than the merits of the technology itself.

From Jamaican central bank plans digital currency, but not blockchain – Ledger Insights – enterprise blockchain:

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Cryptocurrency’s whole purpose is being able to move large quantities of money around without censorship,” says Amir Taaki, lead developer of Dark Wallet.

From The bitcoin terrorists of Idlib are learning new tricks | WIRED UK:

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new evidence points to jihadis becoming more security conscious: switching away from the heavily monitored bitcoin into a wider range of cryptocurrencies and using VPNs to side-step surveillance and sanctions.

From The bitcoin terrorists of Idlib are learning new tricks | WIRED UK:

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Bank customers don’t just want personalized messages (if they want them at all)—they want personalized products. And if the mobile banking app is the product, then the app needs to be personalized.

From The 12 Most Important Mobile Banking Features (And Why No Bank Can Have Them All).

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The trend toward “embedded finance”, whereby the provision of financial services becomes a part of some other customer proposition rather than a distinct proposition of the financial services provider, has been clear for some time but seems to me to be accelerating as the spread of open banking around the globe makes it easier for third parties of all kinds to incorporate finance. My good friend Sophie Guibuad phrased this rather well recently, saying that for the next generation of consumers, banking will be something that you ‘do’ with your favourite brands rather than your chosen bank.

From The rise of embedded finance: It’s the end of fintech (as we know it) – AltFi.

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For Crypto.com, it means that it can send USDC directly to Visa. For instance, if a Crypto.com customer holds USDC in their wallet and makes a card transaction, Crypto.com doesn’t have to first convert USDC tokens to USD.

It can send USDC to Visa’s Ethereum wallet address at Anchorage to settle the transaction. The merchant then gets paid by Visa in their own currency.

From Visa supports transaction settlement with USDC stablecoin | TechCrunch:

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Critics of the Westpac strategy point out that banking licences, capital and software are plentiful and stepping away from customer engagement in favour of supplying banking infrastructure presents a risk to the bank’s retail franchise.

From Westpac expands ‘banking as a service’, diverging from CBA strategy.

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