Snippets

Doing away with a phone (or a card or a chip in your head) and just going with biometrics is a different issue. Biometric identification is a much harder problem and is fraught with difficulties. It can work very well with limited populations, which is why it is being installed in airports all over the place. I rather like the system going in to Chinese airports where when you walk up to one of the screens displaying flight information it switches to displaying your flight only. Very helpful. And earlier this year at KnowID in Las Vegas I saw a super presentation from US Customs and Border Control talking about the specific use of biometrics in airports as an interesting example of how to use biometric technologies for security but at the same time deliver convenience into the mass market. The investments made in biometrics to allow paperless travel have obvious benefits in terms of security but, as we have found in our other work about the cross-sector exploitation of digital identit...

xxx “You don’t set up an IT system to charge your customers for deposits,” Ulster Bank’s computer says no to negative rates | Financial Times : xxx

xxx Policymakers had encouraged the new competition to the entrenched Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Barclays. It does not seem to be working. In 2000 the top six firms accounted for 80 per cent of personal current accounts, according to the FCA. By 2017, the figure had risen to 87 per cent Banks say they are not helped by a contradiction in policy. While the Bank of England has offered more than a dozen new banking licences for new firms to get off the ground, it has also introduced uniquely stringent regulations that banks say make it difficult for them to grow. UK’s bank challengers are fading in fight with big four | Financial Times : xxx

xxx "There’s a new model of tokenization emerging where card-on-file tokenization is done by the payment networks, such as Visa or Mastercard, instead of the merchants." From "Tokenization buzz gets more attention than fundamentals | PaymentsSource" . xxx

xxx As cash use declines, the BRC says card costs continue to rise, resulting in £1.3 billion in third party spending by merchants, up £70 million from 2017. Each transaction cost retailers an average of 5.85 pence per transaction, up 17% (from 4.98 pence). Retail lobby group calls for Government intervention over rising ca... : xxx

xxx Julin stressed that – despite the weight of expectations – no decision has been taken by the Riksbank’s board actually to issue e-kronor. But the approach being investigated is to have a value-based central bank digital currency (CBDC). This would act as a retail digital ‘wallet’ held with the central bank that would offer no interest. There are no current plans to use e-kronor as a transmission tool for monetary policy – for example by imposing negative rates on funds held with the central bank. Julin says the Riksbank is not particularly worried about a substitution of funds away from commercial banks to e-kronor, at least in “in normal times”. Riksbank may not use DLT for e-kronor, says Julin - Central Banking : xxx

xxx "One way to reduce this threat: Central banks could have digital wallets for everyday people, but they wouldn’t pay interest on the balance. Another avenue: Consumers could hold digital cash only at their bank, leaving central banks as remote from everyday savers as they are today." From "The Coming Currency War: Digital Money vs. the Dollar - WSJ" . xxx