Snippings

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“Blockchain sanctions resistance is a long-term strategy for U.S. adversaries. None of the blockchain platforms currently operational could support the volume and speed of financial transactions moving through the conventional banking system. And most importantly, because blockchain ventures currently depend on real-world fiat currency and conventional bank accounts, U.S. sanctions pressure for now can reach businesses in the cryptocurrency and blockchain tech space.

However, the U.S. position of influence is not necessarily permanent.”

From “FDD | Crypto Rogues”.

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When a manufacturer builds a new product that plugs into an existing one despite the latter’s manufacturer’s hostility, that’s called “adversarial interoperability” and it has been around for about as long as the tech industry itself, from the mainframe days to the PC revolution to the operating system wars to the browser wars.

From Interoperability: Fix the Internet, Not the Tech Companies | Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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The reason why German banks are dropping support for SMS OTP is because of legislation that the EU passed in 2015, set to enter into effect on September 14, this year.

From German banks are moving away from SMS one-time passcodes | ZDNet.

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“Staff will develop a procedure for issuing and using market SDRs following currency board rules and backed 100% by official SDRs or by an appropriate mix of sovereign debt of the five basket currencies.”

From “Proposal for an IMF Staff Executive Board Paper on Promoting Market SDRs | The Bretton Woods Committee”.

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“As the papers describe it, the Reserve portfolio sounds like a government-bond money-market mutual fund. It is to hold only short-term government bonds and cash equivalents. The bonds are all to be low in default risk, highly liquid, and low in duration risk.”

From “Libra’s Unresolved Puzzles – Alt-M”.

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Science and Technology Select Committee report on “Digital Government” 10th July

 

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“Rt Hon Norman Lamb MP, Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, said:

‘The potential that digital Government can bring is huge: transforming the relationship between the citizen and the State, saving money and making public services more efficient and agile. However, it is clear that the current digital service offered by the Government has lost momentum and is not transforming the citizen-State relationship as it could.

‘Single unique identifiers can transform the efficiency and transparency of Government services. The Government should ensure there is a national debate on single unique identifiers for citizens to use when accessing public services along with the right of the citizen to know exactly what the Government is doing with their data. In the UK, we have no idea when and how Government departments are accessing and using our data. We could learn from the very different relationship between citizen and the state in Estonia.

‘As well as a lack of leadership, we also heard of skill shortages and legacy systems, which increase the risk of cyber security attacks. But addressing these challenges requires money and the Government must be willing to invest to save in the future.

‘The Government must re-address its approach to digitisation quickly if it wants to retain public trust and its envied position on the world stage.’”

From “Government’s digital approach has lost momentum – News from Parliament – UK Parliament”.

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Facebook itself does not have access to any payment credentials information, though it does collect other information affiliated with a transaction, such as the merchant, the transaction amount, the date and time and the purchased good.

From Facebook to Senators: Libra Crypto Will Respect Consumer Privacy – CoinDesk.

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A couple of years ago, John Cryan (then CEO of Deutsche Bank) said that that the bank was going to shift from employing people to act like robots to employing robots to act like people. Now they have announced 

Deutsche Bank has announced swingeing job cuts as part of a radical overhaul of its operations that will also see it spend €13bn on new technology over the next four years.

From Deutsche Bank to spend €13bn on tech amid massive job cuts.

I told a journalist who asked me about this that for Deutsche Bank to achieve real transformation, they cannot spend their way out of the legacy infrastructure trap. They must partner with the FinTech players who are redefining products and services for an online age, which means “Amazonisation” (ie, a shift to API-centric production and consumption of financial services).

(At the same time, I was board advisor to a financial services company that was going through this amazonisation process and I could see the benefits, so I wasn’t really guessing, I’d seen at first hand how the reduced costs and increased flexibility paid off.)

Deutsche have made considerable investments in technology and, indeed, these improvements in infrastructure “are already making some humans at Deutsche unnecessary“.

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Wang Xin, director of the People’s Bank of China research bureau, warns the new digital currency could have major impact on monetary policy and financial stability

From Facebook’s Libra forcing China to step up plans for its own cryptocurrency, says central bank official | South China Morning Post.

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Facebook said that they assumed the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) or the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) would regulate Libra.

From Inside the Congressional Staff Meeting About Libra.

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