A library of snippets
xxx
Let’s start by defining the term “fintech.” So far it has meant, in effect, taking a well-known financial product — a mortgage, the ability to accept payments, life insurance, etc. — and building software to make it digitally accessible as well as easier and more elegant to buy and use.
xxx
xxx
There are many things in life ask if we have something that is in a certain range, such as for our age, our salary or even our weight. But when we answer the question we often have to give away the actual value. So how can we take our value, and show someone that the range is in a certain range? Well for this we can use range proofs.
xxx
xxx
The app has had a successful start in the supermarket chain; according to Sainsbury’s, SmartShop now accounts for more than half of sales in some of its stores.
From Sainsbury’s news: SmartShop Mobile Pay contactless shopping rolled out | Express.co.uk:
xxx
xxx
A WOMAN who has worked at a bakery for 44 years has been sacked after allowing elderly customers without cards to pay in cash during the coronavirus pandemic.
From Bakery worker sacked after 44 years for allowing elderly customers without cards to pay in cash:
xxx
xxx
FHE is a type of encryption that allows direct mathematical operations on the encrypted data. Upon decryption, the results will be correct. For example, you might encrypt 2, 3, and 7 and send the three encrypted values to a third party. If you then ask the third party to add the first and second values, then multiply the result by the third value and return the result to you, you can then decrypt that result—and get 35.
You don’t ever have to share a key with the third party doing the computation; the data remains encrypted with a key the third party never received.
From IBM completes successful field trials on Fully Homomorphic Encryption | Ars Technica:
xxx
IBM’s Homomorphic Encryption algorithms use lattice-based encryption, are significantly quantum-computing resistant
xxx
Canada’s big five banks are among 31 organisations onboard for the launch of Financial Data Exchange (FDX) in the country, vowing to work together to promote Open Banking through the development of a secure, common, interoperable, flexible and royalty-free industry standard for financial data sharing.
From Big banks back Canadian launch of Financial Data Exchange:
xxx
Thomas Phillipon of the Stern School at NYU carried out a very detailed analysis of the US financial sector back in 2014 found that the unit cost of financial intermediation was around 1.87% on average (which is a lot of money). What’s more, that cost does not seem to have decreased significantly in recent years, despite advances in information technology and despite changes in the organization of the finance industry.
xxx
The graph above shows how the total economic cost of financial intermediation grew from under 2 percent in 1870 to nearly 6 percent before the stock market collapsed in 1929. It grew slowly throughout the postwar expansion, reaching 5 percent in 1980. Then, beginning during the deregulatory years of the Reagan administration, the money flowing to financial intermediaries skyrocketed, rising to almost 9 percent of GDP in 2010.
From Graph: How the Financial Sector Consumed America’s Economic Growth:
xxx
Thomas Phillipon of the Stern School at NYU carried out a very detailed analysis of the US financial sector back in 2014 found that the unit cost of financial intermediation was around 1.87% on average (which is a lot of money). This adds up to a significant chunk of GDP. Indeed, calculation seem to indicate that the finance sector consumes about 2% excess GDP. What’s more, these costs do not seem to have decreased significantly in recent years, despite advances in information technology and despite changes in the organization of the finance industry. Earlier World Bank work looking at the impact of bank regulations, market structure, and national institutions on bank net interest margins and overhead costs using data from 1,400 banks across 72 countries tell us why: tighter regulations on bank entry and bank activities increase the cost of intermediation.
To put it crudely, Moore’s Law and Metcalfe’s Law are overcome by the actual law and the costs of KYC, AML, CTF, PEP, Basle II, MiFID, Durbin and so and forth climb far faster than transistors shrink.
In 2013, the total compensation of financial intermediaries (profits, wages, salary and bonuses) as a fraction of GDP was at an all-time high of around 9% of GDP.
Snippings