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One thing that is fascinating about OnlyFans is that because it involves the exchange of real dollars, which opens up plentiful opportunities for scams and fraud, it is ironically the social platform most driven by the mantra “know your customer.” In order to sign up as a creator, you must prove your identity with a full bank, address and license validation process.

This means when it comes to the validation of social media accounts in the real world, OnlyFans creators are some of the most trusted verified accounts on the internet.

There is something deeply ironic about the fact that OnlyFans, a platform for risqué fantasy and characters, is the least likely among social networks to have a problem with fake accounts. You can trust that the creators are real people who have been validated in a way that few other platforms offer.

There is something to learn from this.

First, OnlyFans offers an example of how the desire to get paid for content online smooths the way to validating user identities. There are three major reasons other social services don’t validate the people who participate in their networks. First, the friction of going through the validation process for new accounts prevents people from signing up. Second, it is expensive and time-consuming for services to validate identities. Third, requiring proof of real-world identity is quite exclusionary, as many people can’t easily make that proof. The desire to get paid for content provides a level of motivation that overcomes at least the first two of these hurdles.

From Lessons From the Rise of OnlyFans — The Information:

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In the OnlyFans ecosystem, however, subscribing to a creator is simply another step in the monetization funnel.

A user subscribes to a creator for premium content, but that subscription doesn’t unlock everything.  Instead, creators can post content that requires separate payments per post or charge their subscribers incrementally for personal messaging.

This moves what a subscription represents from being the way the creator monetizes to being  just an important step in the funneling process—where the user demonstrates willingness to pay for content and puts a credit card on file to use for more purchases.

From Lessons From the Rise of OnlyFans — The Information:

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In the current economic downturn, to highlight the obvious example, many people make a lot mistakes in managing their finance through stressful and unfamiliar circumstances. But as was pointed out in the Wall Street Journal recently, most of these mistakes a very basic. It does not take a giant supercomputer and all of the data in the word to stop people from falling into common traps around the way they borrow, save, spend and invest.

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Jack Gavigan is the head of product and regulatory affairs at the Electric Coin Co, where he has been developing Z/Cash as a new crypto currency. He defines himself as a ‘fintechnologist focussed on virtual currencies and blockchain technology’. He is a former trader, who also worked with Mark at Starling.

From Bitcoin: Digital gold? Or just another bubble? – CSFI – YouTube:

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Eric Budish is the Steven Rothmeier Professor of Economics at Chicago’s Booth School of Business and a research associate at the NBER. He is also co-director of the University’s Initiative on Global Markets, and recently presented an important paper on Bitcoin and blockchain at the Atlanta Fed.

From Bitcoin: Digital gold? Or just another bubble? – CSFI – YouTube:

Look for changes in the use of Bitcoin, not the price of Bitcoin.

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Mark Hipperson is the CEO of Ziglu, which has recently obtained a banking license, and which offers retail customers the opportunity to trade Bitcoin at competitive rates. He is a former CTO at Starling Bank and at Centrip, and spent 11 years at Barclays on the technology side.

From Bitcoin: Digital gold? Or just another bubble? – CSFI – YouTube:

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Bank of Amsterdam

Payments and credit jumbled up

Payment instituion

OCC payment charter

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In contrast to Lynch, Republican ranking member Congressman Tom Emmer offered support for the OCC payment charter, saying it is “by no means a license to operate free from regulation”.

From US politicians weigh response to OCC payments charters:

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The McKinsey/HBR study surveyed 46,000 customers over one year and found that only seven percent used online channels exclusively for shopping; equally, only 20 percent of customers restricted their shopping to physical stores. The remaining three-quarters (73 percent) used a blend of online and physical experiences to inform their purchases and buy goods and services.

From Omnichannel: Is it the saviour of traditional retailing?:

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GLEIF (Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation) has introduced a new LEI ‘Validation Agent’ framework, which will enable FIs to simplify and accelerate LEI (legal identity identifier) issuance for their clients.

From GLEIF Defines New Framework to Simplify, Accelerate LEI Issuance:

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The European Commission is considering proposing a law to start phasing out the small 1 and 2 Eurocent coins, and round prices off to the nearest 5 cents.

From EU considers phasing out 1 and 2 cent coins:

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Hot on the heels of its new transaction management services plan, Swift is trying out a new service for low value cross-border payments.

The idea is to get more action from the consumer and SME market. Swift explains that it is working with over 20 banks to develop the service, which builds on gpi (global payments innovation) and its rails. Gpi is built as a suite of cloud-based tools, and lets users track payments, monitor adherence to SLAs, and consult information related to gpi member bank counterparties.

David Watson, Chief Strategy Officer at Swift, reckons this new initiative will have “widespread adoption”.

Swift shakes things up with transaction services strategy
In terms of details, consumers and SMEs will get “predictable” payments, with costs and processing times known upfront, and real-time status available to both originator and beneficiary customers via their financial institutions.

Last week, the first payments through the new service were exchanged between banks who are helping to develop it. These include Bank of China, Barclays, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, KEB Hana Bank, MYbank, National Australia Bank, SMBC, Standard Bank, StoneX, UniCredit and Wells Fargo.

From Swift pilots low value cross-border payments service – Fintech Direct:

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Consumers Are Favoring a Single Card:

As consumer interest in credit cards has been in decline, debit cards are the likely destination.
Interestingly, consumer flight from credit began in 2018-2019 resulting in increased debit, cash, and prepaid usage.
Not only are consumers switching payment methods: consumers are consolidating to a single preferred payment method.
The battle is on for top-of-wallet: now credit cards have to compete with fellow credit rewards programs and debit cards in general.

From Consumers Are Favoring a Single Card: | PaymentsJournal:

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