Snippings

xxx

One of the ways officials tried to achieve this was by promoting so-called challenger banks that were meant to take on the incumbents. But despite regulators deliberately handing out more banking licences to newcomers in order to foster competition, the UK’s retail banking market remains dominated by the largest historic players.

From: In charts: How Britain’s banking revolution failed.

xxx

xxx

The EU took its first formal step towards open finance in June 2023 with a proposed Financial Data Access Regulation (FiDA), building out from the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) which allowed third-party payment service providers to access information about payment accounts maintained by other institutions and facilitated the introduction of open banking in 2018. FiDA will generally apply to financial institutions and to the newly introduced Financial Information Service Providers (FISPs) – entities that have obtained an authorisation from a competent authority to provide financial information services which involve accessing customer data. The framework will allow, subject to an individual customer’s consent, access to data on mortgage credit agreements, loans, savings, investments in financial instruments, insurance-based investment products, cryptoassets, real estate, and related financial assets, including pension rights. However, more sensitive information, like data related to sickness and health insurance products will be excluded.

FiDA also presents new data-sharing tools, including a dashboard which will allow customers to manage their data permissions in real time, and arrangements for entities to agree ‘rules of the road’ such as contractual standards, access arrangements and even costs (known as financial data sharing schemes). Currently, FiDA is in the proposal stage; it is expected to be applicable from 2027.

From: The sanity of crowds – Can smart data initiatives transform consumer finances? | Herbert Smith Freehills | Global law firm.

xxx

xxx

The European Commission will abandon plans to introduce rules requiring financial institutions to share information with customers and competitors after strong criticism from industry.
According to a document obtained by POLITICO, the Financial Data Access, or FiDA, regulation will be withdrawn within six months as it is “not aligned with Commission’s current objectives” and would introduce a “significant burden and complexity for financial actors” which goes against the EU executive’s goal to simplify rules.

From: Brussels U-turns on plans for more consumer financial data access – POLITICO.

xxx

xxx

Initially flagged for potential withdrawal amid broader efforts to simplify the regulatory environment, FIDA has since re-emerged in the European Commission’s 2025 work programme.

From: FIDA in flux: What next for EU Open Finance Regulations?.

xxx

 

Experts now anticipate significant revisions as FIDA enters the trialogue stage of negotiations between the Commission, the European Parliament, and member states.

xxx

David Geale, the PSR’s managing director, says: “We have found that there is a lack of competition in the market, and evidence that Mastercard and Visa might have been able to charge UK businesses millions of pounds more than they would in a properly competitive market,

From: PSR to take action against card schemes after 25% hike in fees.

xxx

Aylo (which owns the world’s largest porn sites) says it supports age assurance in principle, but argues that “any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy”. Well, I agree. Bot no sane person would recommend implementing age verification this way. The users age will be verified by third=party service providers who would the give the user the necessary credentials to present to porn sites inorder to gain access and these credentials would not contain any PII at all, simply the relevant attributes (eg, IS-OVER-18) digitially signed by, for example, a bank.

xxx

The article quotes porn enthusiast Mallory McMaster, who says she “would not be watching pornography on a website that required me to upload a photo of my driver’s license,” because “I’m not sure where it would end up.”

From: Porn battle comes to Ohio with bill requiring users to verify age with state IDs | Biometric Update.

xxx

xxx

Wang ordered attorneys Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster to show cause as to why the court should not sanction the defendants, law firm, and individual attorneys. Kachouroff and DeMaster also have to explain why they should not be referred to disciplinary proceedings for violations of the rules of professional conduct.

Kachouroff and DeMaster, who are defending Lindell against a lawsuit filed by former Dominion Voting Systems employee Eric Coomer, both signed the February 25 brief with the defective citations. Kachouroff, representing defendants as lead counsel, admitted using AI to write the brief at an April 21 hearing, the judge wrote.

From: Mike Lindell’s lawyers used AI to write brief—judge finds nearly 30 mistakes – Ars Technica.

xxx

xxx

When Congress exempted small banks from debit card swipe fee caps under the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 it led to an unexpected outcome: a wave of partnerships between small banks and fintech companies because the smaller banks have more interchange revenue to share. Fintechs deserve credit for popularizing no-overdraft accounts and pressuring others to follow. On the other hand, their business model cuts costs by eliminating bank branches, which limits access for those without digital access.

From: How Fed debit card regs could drive debanking.

xxx

xxx

“This is about much more than just getting your website indexed in their results. This is about recognising large language models as the ultimate influencer,” said Jack Smyth, partner at marketing technology group Brandtech, which has created its own interface for brands.

From: Brands target AI chatbots as users switch from Google search.

xxx

xxx

Most predictions anticipated either an extremely bad or extremely good end-state. One common and more nuanced forecast was the desire to see LLMs move from advice and information to doing, i.e., agentic behavior. For example, one user wanted a model that would “cancel this subscription before they start charging me.”

From: How People Are Really Using Gen AI in 2025.

xxx

xxx

e-IDAS2 provides legal acceptance for digital signing and Uses Advanced Electronic Signatures (AdES) [here]. AdES is defined as part of the EU Regulation No 910/2014 (eIDAS-regulation) and is used to provide electronic identification and for trusted services related to electronic transactions in the EU. e-ID uses a ledger based on EBSI (Electronic Blockchain Services Infrastructure) with a federated approach with each country running their own trust infrastructure (uses Hyperledger Fabric). Each country is responsible for registering entities with its digital wallet. EBSI will then hold the trusted public keys of entities. Overall, there are many application areas defined, including driving licences, travel documents, qualifications, and so on. It has a focus on \emph{Gather once, use many times approach}, and compliant wallets for organisations and individuals are being defined at \cite{europaConformantWallets}. Serbia aims to launch a digital wallet by the end of 2025 \cite{seenewsSerbiaLaunch}.

From: TSPs, e-ID, e-IDAS 2 and the UK Digital Wallet | by Prof Bill Buchanan OBE FRSE | Apr, 2025 | Medium.

xxx