A library of snippets
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Stablecoin platform Circle is working with Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, Société Générale and Santander to build a cross-border payment network to rival Swift.
From: Circle lines up banking partners for stablecoin-based Swift competitor.
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When your agent says: “Find me a hotel in Paris under $400 with a view of the Eiffel Tower,” it doesn’t just shoot off a search query. It packages that request with:
Your verified identity (e.g., from your digital wallet)
Preferences pulled from past trips
Payment credentials (tokenized)
Constraints like price cap, dates, loyalty programs
This is the structured context payload, and it’s sent to the travel site’s MCP client.From: The End of Clicks: When AI Agents Become Your Customers (Part 2).
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Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr recently said that in the face of increasing AI-based deepfake attacks, banks must “fight fire with fire” and invest more in artificial intelligence themselves. I disagree. That is a red queen’s race. Banks must evolve their use of digital identity to thwart deepfake attacks.
Deepfakes are becoming pervasive, and not only in banking. The owner of a London art gallery lost £30,000 after spending months negotiating an exhibition with a fake Pierce Brosnan. In another UK case, a woman was arrested after allegedly dressing up in a series of wigs and disguises to take citizenship tests on behalf of at least 14 other people, both make and female, using “doctored ID documents” to evade detection. The owner of an AirBnB property rented it out to a woman who had a stolen identity and passed the reference report with a forged driver’s licence: she then stole the furniture and sublet the house as a party pad.
(This sort of nonsense goes on all the time. Showing a fake driving licence to someone who has no idea how to check whether a driving licence is real or not is a form of security theatre, not actual security.)
It is possible that the use of facial recognition, voice analysis and behavioral biometrics will be able to detect AI fakes, until those fakes get better. And it may well be that significant investments in AI may help to defend banks against a tsunami of AI fraud, but that may be a temporary relief as the fraudsters up their game. But why go down this road? Instead of trying to out-AI the attackers, why not use a tried and tested technology that cannot be faked: digital signatures.
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The plot, which is currently active, bears a passing resemblance to OneCoin – a fake cryptocurrency launched in Germany that turned out to be a giant Ponzi scheme.
However, this is thought to be the first time experts have observed the launch of a genuine digital coin by a British street gang.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s volatile economic policies have tanked the dollar and thrown its status as the world’s reserve currency into question. The euro is poised to take advantage. Uncertainty over the transatlantic alliance may finally remove the political obstacles to the all-important creation of a euro zone safe asset to rival U.S. Treasury bonds.
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This relative underperformance is explained above all by the third test that a global currency must fulfil – and the fact that on it the Eurozone unfortunately falls down flat. This is the existence of a euro-denominated ‘safe asset’ to compete with US Treasury bonds. Such an ultimate safe haven security is the most fundamental building-block of a modern financial system – the collateral for repurchase and derivative contracts, the pricing benchmark for all other asset markets, and the basic savings instrument for domestic and foreign investors alike. Without a like-for-like Eurozone substitute for the US Treasury market, the euro simply isn’t at the races.
That fact is not lost on policy-makers. In 2011, the European Commission (EC) floated the idea of joint and severally guaranteed Stability Bonds which Eurozone members would be able to issue in an amount up to 60 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product. The European Systemic Risk Board proposed an alternative plan in 2018 for European Sovereign-Backed securities (“ESBies”), securitised pools of existing national government bonds, tranched into safer and riskier lines. In 2021, the EC even issued EUR750 billion programme of joint bonds to finance its post-Covid NextGenerationEU Recovery and Resilience Facility – though as a strictly time-limited experiment only.
The obstacle to the creation of a Eurozone safe asset, however, has always been political rather than technical. Bluntly, the more fiscally conservative Eurozone members have never accepted the principle of joint liability for Eurozone public debt. Yet in the era of America First, maybe even that shibboleth will fall.
Canada shows how fast public attitudes can change. President Trump’s economic and diplomatic blitzkrieg has just produced one of the biggest turn-arounds in recent political history. At a stroke, it transformed the incumbent Liberal party’s trenchant multilateralism from its Achilles’ heel to its strongest selling point, and turned a giant polling deficit into a narrow lead going into next Monday’s General Election.
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Likewise in the Eurozone, the prospect of further financial integration appeared vanishingly slight just a few short weeks ago. Yet with the greatest threat to incumbent parties in both France and Germany coming from the Trump-adjacent nationalist right, the heightened transatlantic tensions may prove a political gift to the dream of a truly global euro.
After all, what self-respecting patriot would now dare to oppose the project that, more than any other, will finally put Europe First?
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s volatile economic policies have tanked the dollar and thrown its status as the world’s reserve currency into question. The euro is poised to take advantage. Uncertainty over the transatlantic alliance may finally remove the political obstacles to the all-important creation of a euro zone safe asset to rival U.S. Treasury bonds.
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The Dutch payment service provider Adyen (which handles more than a trillion euros per annum in transactions) recently succumbed to cyberattacks that disrupted debit card payments and checkout processes in online shops and physical stores as well as their pay-by-link service. The market reacted badly a and their share price fell by more than 2%.
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Banks, on the front lines of fraud detection, must rise to the occasion with better AI tools, according to Fed Gov. Michael Barr.
From: Banks must fight deepfakes with better AI, Barr says | Banking Dive.
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https://apple.news/Ak3v_ZzdhTfOLpiWL64DjPg
Digital IDs can secure our borders and boost the economy
Labour MPs are right that virtual identification would help tackle illegal immigration but the benefits and applications go much further
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The deputy mayor of Calais, Philippe Mignonet wants the UK to introduce identity cards as part of efforts to deter migrants gathering at the French port and attempting to cross the channel.
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