Skip to main content

UK visionaries drag us kicking and screaming into the 1770s

You can’t say that London isn’t a fintech powerhouse and epicentre of the revolution that is forging a new financial services industry in the white heat of old technology. Wait, what?

"The UK is to roll out an image-based cheque clearing system in October that will slash processing times from six 'weekdays' to one day"

UK to roll out image-based cheque clearing system

I’d forgotten that some people still use cheques. I haven’t seen one for ages and haven’t the slightest idea where my chequebook is. I can’t even think what I might need a cheque for. In the last couple of weeks I’ve paid our gardener, window cleaner, a building contractor and my youngest son using my mobile phone. I have absolutely no need for cheques. Still, they are important to the powers that be.

"These changes will put cheques firmly in the 21st century"

UK to roll out image-based cheque clearing system

Actually, it will put cheques firmly in the 18th century, which is when they used to clear in one day because the clerks of the London banks had set up their own informal clearing system down the pub.

"Daily cheque clearing began around 1770 when the bank clerks met at the Five Bells, a tavern in Lombard Street in the City of London, to exchange all their cheques in one place and settle the balances in cash."

Cheque clearing - Wikipedia

Why waste money supporting the declining cheque business (cheque use fell another 15% in the UK last year) when we should be spending the money on identity infrastructure that is need to support the transition to open banking. It could all have been so different!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

There is no excuse for not taking cards

So we went to the pub. For lunch. Seven of us. Say £20 per head. £100+ quid. Say £50 quid gross for the pub. Colleague goes to order food and drinks and pay at the bar. Apologetic barmaid comes over to explain that their “card machine” is down, so she can only accept cash. Under normal circumstances I would have simply walked out, feeling it wholly inappropriate to reward such a poorly managed establishment and, as a functioning actor in a capitalist economy, done my duty to depress their lunchtime takings. Here’s what we wanted to say: This is absurd. This is 2016 not 1916. Your card machine is down? Well, so what! Are you seriously telling me that mein host has no mobile phone number capable of registering for PingIt or PayM? That none of the staff or the pub itself have a PayPal account that I can send the money to? That neither the owners nor managers not contingency planners thought to tuck an iZettle behind the bar to use when the clunky and expensive GPRS terminal fails for o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force

Forum friend Ian Grigg, who I always take very seriously indeed on any such topic, wrote about Corda on his blog and concluded with a powerful statement. Bitcoin told the users it wanted an unstoppable currency - sure, works for a small group but not for the mass market. Ethereum told their users they need an unstoppable machine - which worked how spectacularly with the DAO? Not. What. We. Wanted. Corda is the only game in town because it's the only one that asked the users. It's that simple. From Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force xxx It seems to me, however, what Ian is pointing to as the greatest strength of their approach is also the greatest weakness. A staple feature of unimaginative management consultants presentations about innovation is some variation on the statement by Henry Ford that if you had asked users what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses coupled with some variation on the statement by Steve jobs that it was pointless ask...
Post a Comment
Read more

We could fix mobile security, you know. We don't, but we could

Earlier in the week I blogged about mobile banking security , and I said that in design terms it is best to assume that the internet is in the hands of your enemies. In case you think I was exaggerating… The thieves also provided “free” wireless connections in public places to secretly mine users’ personal information. From Gone in minutes: Chinese cybertheft gangs mine smartphones for bank card data | South China Morning Post Personally, I always use an SSL VPN when connected by wifi (even at home!) but I doubt that most people would ever go to this trouble or take the time to configure a VPN and such like. Anyway, the point is that the internet isn’t secure. And actually SMS isn’t much better, which is why it shouldn’t really be used for securing anything as important as home banking. The report also described how gangs stole mobile security codes – which banks automatically send to card holders’ registered mobile phones to verify online transactions – by using either a Trojan...
Post a Comment
Read more