A library of snippets
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The nine percent rise in UK card fraud over 2015, topped the previous peak set in 2008 after the introduction of chip and PIN.
From Rise in online and mobile shopping drives card fraud transactions t…
CNP fraud is now almost three-quarters of total card fraud, which is what you’d expect given the use of the chip and PIN.
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The PCI Security Standards Council, which comprises the five largest global credit card companies, is expected to green light the way Square captures PIN numbers through smartphones.
From Square gets green light to take on banks with ‘PIN on glass’ mobile technology
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Well, that was fun. I was invited along to take part in the CSFI roundtable on “’Formal’ digital cash: The currencies of the future?” along with Ben Dyson from the Bank of England and Hugh Halford-Thompson of BTL Group. The event, held at the London Capital Club, was hugely oversubscribed, which I took to be evidence of renewed City interest in the general topic of digital cash and the specific topic of digital currency.
My good friend Andrew Hilton, long-stanfing captain of the good ship CSFI, framed the discussion in his invitation ask the basic “what if”. “What if some central bank issued a digital coin that was as widely accepted as a bank note? Or, if not a central bank, what if a group of banks or payments operators issued a similar digital coin?”.
For me, the roundtable was both an opportunity to plug my new book (did I mention that I have a new book out by the way?) “Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin” and an opportunity to learn in the best possible way: by answering hard questions from smart people.
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“Such risks could be reduced if central banks offer digital national currencies, which the IMF defines as a ‘widely available DLT-based representation of fiat money’.”
IMF urges central banks to study digital currencies | afr.com
Now, why the IMF would define digital national currencies is unclear. A national digital currency, or e-fiat for short, may be implemented in any number of different ways. A “widely-available DLT-based representation” would be only one such option and even then it is not entirely clear what “DLT-based” actually means in this context. For that matter, it is not entirely clear what “DLT” means in this context either.
David L. Yermack, the Albert Fingerhut Professor of Finance and Business Transformation at New York University Stern School of Business, wrote recently that:
“Rather than printing greenbacks and circulating bills and notes, why doesn’t the Federal Reserve just put everything on a national blockchain and make all of the money electronic? This is something that I think is probably going to happen. “
“The Blockchain Is Going to Revolutionize Central Banking and Monetary Policy” –
Well, I think it’s probably going to happen too, but it depends what you mean by “national blockchain”.
As my old friend Simon Leleiveldt points out…
“One big difference between banks and payment institutions is that payment institutions are barred access from the RTGS-system of the ECB. The reasons is that the Settlement Finality Directive does not allow for PIs to become a direct member of designated systems. Even though already 5 years ago, the Dutch Ministry of Finance has made it clear that from a policy perspective the Settlement Finality Directive should change in this respect, no further action can be seen on the EU-level.”
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20 years ago in June 1997 the Centre for the study of financial innovation published a report called the Internet and financial services.
This report was the result of a series of working groups that had been set up to look at retail banking, personal finance, insurance, equity trading, regulation, payments, security and crime at the dawn of the Internet era. I was part of the team that created the input to the report (I was also part of the retail banking working group) and I’m eternally grateful to Andrew Hilton, the director of the centre, for having kicked off the process all the way back in 1996. I learned a lot from taking part in the working groups and from distilling input from a lot of different people in order to create input to the report. When I look at the things I wrote around that time, two things stand out to me. First of all, I was right about the likely impact of mobile phones because even in those far-off days with the first rudimentary SMS services in place, you could see that the mobile could be a very powerful new channel for financial services (although not even I could have imagined just how central it would become to the modern financial services industry)
Once each of the unremarkable acts we undertake in the course of the day—opening the front door, buying the groceries, hopping onto the bus—has been reconceived as a digital transaction, it tends to dematerialize.
Secondly I was wrong about digital television! I’d worked on a couple of digital television projects back in those days, including projects for delivering financial services and other information using digital television and I was sure that for many people the digital TV will become the easiest way to access rich financial services. But I did share the feeling of many people at those early roundtables that something unusual was happening and that the Internet would turn out to be a major and unpredictable driver of change. The executive summary of the report picked out for ways that the Internet might disrupt the financial services landscape as it stood then. More competition (and more transparency) to the benefit of new entrants, privileging suppliers with technology and digital marketing know-how and incumbents lacked, empowering customers by giving them direct access and removing geography as a constraint to financial services businesses. Remember this was long before the iPhone, WAP and the great financial crisis stop
The report correctly predicted that banking would move from branches to screens, that the personal finance market would sprout many direct suppliers, that equity markets will give retail investors access to prices and suchlike and that while the insurance industry might be slow to adopt new technology the elimination of geography would be a particular benefits to both wholesale and retail providers.
I note, interestingly, the report also said that the Internet might eventually provides a means for settling equity trades, a discussion researching since the arrival of bit coin and the block chain.
One other thing I found rather interesting about report is that it was confident about the ability of the technology to deliver security and clearly did not anticipate the failure of the market to implement it. Finally the report says that “regulation may be the key obstacle” and as time goes by it is becoming steadily more clear that it is regulation that will shape strategy over the coming years.
I was the chairman of the retail banking working group along with Paul Taylor from the financial Times, and a variety of well-informed and expert members including my old friend Thomas Carruthers who went on to launch X, Keith Gold from IBM who was very influential in helping me to think about the big picture relationship between technology and banking, representatives from both a few banks, lawyers, the BBC and something called Anderson consulting which no longer exists as far as I can tell from a quick Google.. I noticed that one of the conclusions of the retail banking working group was that there was an opportunity for banks to provide risk management services that “could eventually become a core business of Internet-based banks” and although I don’t remember who made that point most vigorously, whoever did at the beginning had a big influence on my thinking. The working group was right to say that “it is hard to overstate the potential impact of the Internet on retail banking in the UK” and I think, unless I’m misreading some of the comments, seen quite bullish on the ability of the existing banks to extend and embrace the digital revolution. I think at the time there was probably a lot of talk of new Internet only banks coming along and overthrowing the establish order, which really didn’t happen, so I imagine that sober voices must have steered the working group around my youthful enthusiasm for all things digital.
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The futuristic store collects a shopper’s biometrics—most notably walking gait—as he or she scans the QR code and uses sensors on the shelves to detect removal of items.
From Chinese store uses gait biometrics for payment | Planet Biometrics News
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Efforts by some Chinese cities to use facial recognition software to shame jaywalkers have been met with concerns that the practice may violate pedestrians’ privacy.
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Most obviously, in using them to navigate, we become reliant on access to the network to accomplish ordinary goals.
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“The assassination of Caesar is part of the script of the play, which was written 418 years ago by William Shakespeare; the choice to depict the title character as akin to President Trump is part of a long history of productions of the play that have used the text to explore contemporary politics.”
(Via. Two Protesters Disrupt ‘Julius Caesar’ in Central Park – The New York Times)
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As usual, the Guildford Shakespeare Company have produced a mind-blowing production.
From Review: Guildford Shakespeare Company’s Julius Caesar – Essential Surrey
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To be in the audience for this production is to be very much part of the proceedings;
From Review of Julius Caesar – Guildford Shakespeare Company
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The audience are given placards and encouraged to chant their support for the dictator Caesar in a stage-managed rally where protestors are violently ejected.
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Jack Wharrier as Mark Anthony is magnificent; he delivers the speech that turns the mob against the conspirators with such passion that “Brutus is an honourable man”, at first a compliment, becomes spitting irony and rabble-rousing rhetoric.
From Review: Guildford Shakespeare Company’s Julius Caesar – Essential Surrey
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Brutus, played by Johanne Murdock in this gender-neutral production, is powerful in the second half as the commander of the conspirators’ army
Snippings