Snippings

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The Federal Reserve has announced the core features of its new instant payment infrastructure, which is set to launch in 2023 and 2024.

The FedNow system is an around-the-clock instant settlement platform for retail payments. It is the Fed’s first attempt to build a new payment infrastructure in 46 years, when it launched the Automated Clearing House.

From Fed reveals instant payment plans – Central Banking:

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To misdirect the algorithm, the researchers used an image translation algorithm known as CycleGAN, which excels at morphing photographs from one style into another.

From The hack that could make face recognition think someone else is you | MIT Technology Review:

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Esther George of the Kansas City Fed outlined plans to develop an alias-based directory service at a “very early subsequent phase” to the launch of FedNow. A directory service enables consumers and business to pay using an alias, such as a mobile number or email address, instead of passing over sensitive bank details. It is often considered another key feature of a safe payments system.

From Fed reveals instant payment plans – Central Banking:

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On July 31, 2020, the Russian President signed the law on digital financial assets, digital currency and amendments to certain Russian legislation (the “Law”).

From Russia Adopts Law on Digital Financial Assets | 08 | 2020 | Publications | Insights & Publications | Debevoise & Plimpton LLP:

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To misdirect the algorithm, the researchers used an image translation algorithm known as CycleGAN, which excels at morphing photographs from one style into another.

From The hack that could make face recognition think someone else is you | MIT Technology Review:

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Card costs continue to rise as retailers spent £1.3 billion with third parties, up £70 million from 2017.  Each transaction cost retailers an average of 5.85 pence per transaction, up 17% (from 4.98 pence). These additional costs are largely driven by the fees paid by businesses to credit and debit card companies, that increased by over 50% in 2018.

From The British Retail Consortium calls for Action on Card Fees – Cash Essentials:

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Gilles Grapinet: I am convinced that our payment industry is on the right track and has a bright future. Our fundamental mission is to support the long-term transition initiated decades ago towards economies with much less cash-based payments and much more electronic payments.

We may not have the driving force of Silicon Valley or the volumes of China, but we can rely in Europe on one of the world’s most innovative regulatory systems and a very competitive market, which helped us cross many thresholds.

From A strategy for a new normal in European payments: An interview with Worldline CEO Gilles Grapinet:

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Observations

Issuers have yet to enable SCA in some markets, for browser, app or both – CYP, ESP, EST, LTU, LVA, PRT.
Challenge success rates are low to very low. This means merchants lose sales and customers cannot get the goods and services they want.
Customers abandon checkout at high rates when challenged. This suggests customers are confused, don’t like the authentication method, and/or encounter poor implementations of SCA.
Even a successful challenge takes a long time to complete, especially for app. This suggests that significant friction is added to the customer purchase experience.
Issuers rely heavily on Visa/Mastercard for authentication stand-in. This suggests that issuers are not ready with their own implementations of EMV 3DS.
Authorization approval rates worsen with authentication stand-in. This means that merchants are penalized for lack of issuer readiness.
Authorization approval rates improve when the challenge succeeds. A bright spot, this suggests the payments ecosystem can deliver on the promise of SCA.
SCA readiness is more than just EMV 3DS enablement, it is about performance as well. Based on current testing results, the ecosystem has some ways to go.

From Microsoft SCA Testing Results | LinkedIn:

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As one of the legions of fans of the brilliant BBC / British Museum radio series on “A History of the World in 100 Objects”, I was absolutely fascinated by the episode on 14th-century Chinese paper money: follow the link and have a look at the beautiful picture of the Chinese banknote from 1375.

The Chinese writing along the top of this note reads (from right to left): ‘Da Ming tong xing bao chao’ and translates as Great Ming Circulating Treasure Note’

[From 
Chinese Ming bank note › The British Museum
]
I love that name: Bank of England notes really should be inscribed “Circulating Lack of Treasure Note”. These notes had pictures of the “cash” (copper coins with holes in the middle, threaded on to a string) that they represented: ours should have a picture of… what? What do they represent?

From Smart banknote design competition – Consult Hyperion:

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China and Russia have roughly halved their use of the dollar in trade settlements over the past five years.

From China and Russia ditch dollar in move toward ‘financial alliance’ – Nikkei Asian Review:

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