A library of snippets
xxx
This security/usability trade-off is not inherent to Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), and in fact the opposite is more commonly true: in order for SCA to be secure it must also be usable “because if the security is usable, users will do the security tasks, rather than ignore or circumvent them”.
From Strong Customer Authentication in the Payment Services Directive 2 – Bentham’s Gaze
xxx
xxx
Fashion brand Babyghost has partnered with Chinese blockchain-as-a-service company BitSE and its VeChain project to deliver a range of clothes incorporating NFC tags and verified using blockchain technology.
From Fashion brand adds NFC and blockchain for authentic personal clothing • NFC World
xxx
In the US, the new NACHA same-day ACH will have a 5.2 cent per transaction fee that is paid by the originating institution to the receiving institution. It is up to the institutions whether they charge customers anything for it. But even if they were to pass that whole cost on to merchants, my guess is that the merchants will prefer the low-cost, same-day payment over the existing schemes (e.g., debit cards).
xxx
McDonald’s is planning to launch a mobile order and pay service in up to 25,000 restaurants worldwide by the end of 2018, starting in the US next year
From McDonald’s to launch mobile order and pay next year • NFC World
xxx
xxx
A new Federal Reserve study finds while consumer habits around cash are changing, its popularity remains high
From With a Flurry of New Ways to Pay, Cash Hangs On – Real Time Economics – WSJ
I’m not sure I would say “high”. What the Fed study actually shows is that cash was 40% of all transactions in 2012, 32% of all transactions now. So it’s fallen from being used for less than half of all transactions to less than a third. That doesn’t sound like “hanging on” to be honest. What was most interesting, to my mind, was that fact that the use of cash for P2P transactions has gone up despite the advance of Venmo. My guess is that cash displaced checks.
xxx
These costs might all be worth it if there were any proof that anti-money-laundering laws lowered crime rates. But the laws don’t even put a dent in money laundering. A Brookings Institution scholar testified before Congress that 99.9% of dirty money in the United States is successfully laundered.
Perhaps there has been some progress, because a more recent study in the UK suggested that some 0.75% of the dodgy cash is being intercepted now. But the general point holds. Our mental model is all wrong. We shouln’t be trying (and failing at great expense) to keep dirty money out of the system, we should be getting it into the system and then using the modern technologies at our disposal – data analytics, forensics, machine learning and artificial intelligence – to work out who is up to no good so that law enforcement resources can be properly targeted.
xxx
The conman, known only as Adil, has been exposed for selling fake residency cards to immigrants in Birmingham – and charging up to £600 per ID card.
xxx
xxx
So is a blockchain based identity practical?
I think the answer is “yes” but it needs to be designed very carefully. It may also need to start with the sort of areas that can manage it best and already need a virtual identity (such as land registration or financial services transactions).
xxx
xxx
But her company struggles with what she estimates to be an effective tax rate of nearly 50 percent, as well as having to deal almost exclusively in cash. Because marijuana remains illegal under federal law, access to banking services is severely restricted.
From From Colorado, a glimpse at life after marijuana legalization – The Boston Globe
xxx
I happened to be reading
| Instrument | Change 2013-2018E |
| Cash | down 33% |
| Check | down 50% |
| Credit Card | up 64% |
| Debit Card | up 48% |
| Electronic | up 62% |
I think that as a longer-term guide these figures are misleading, because I am convinced they underestimate the impact of instant payments. If the US banks are sucessful with Zelle, I’d expect to see electronic payments grow more rapidly at the expense of cash, checks and cards as we shift to an app and API infrastructure for payments.
Snippings