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xxx Develop an OAuth-like solution for banking and an e-KYC API like the Aadhaar card. Impress upon regulators the need to expand the set of accepted documents for KYC to reflect changing times and to promote financial inclusion while preventing illicit activity. Things like verified social media accounts or, in the case of immigrants or refugees, foreign national IDs (even ones that have expired) may work as well as a utility bill. From Four Visions of the Future of Identity | Bank Think xxx

xxx Today, AirBnB offers eight ways for members to verify aspects of their identity. These range from the basics, such as an email and phone number, to social media platform validations (Facebook, Google, LinkedIn) to traditional personal data (like the questions a credit card application asks) to previously verified identity – your American Express card, for example. AirBnB does the job of verifying the actual user data and then displays the verification token, so site users don't need access to one other's sensitive personal information. They only need to know the verification is valid. From Four Visions of the Future of Identity | Bank Think xxx

The Payments UK report on “ Request to Pay ” deals with 

xxx A NATIONAL e-payment system will advance Thailand’s financial infrastructure by another five to 10 years once it is fully implemented, a member of the national e-payment panel said. The first “any ID” service will be available around September… Each person will have a 13-digit ID number for money transfers, bill payments and other transactions. From Thai e-payment system to use ‘any ID’ feature - The Nation xxx

One of the bogus arguments deployed to argue in favour of cash is that it is somehow good for poor people. It really isn’t. The people trapped in a cash economy, who are generally the poorest, are the people who face the highest transactions costs. And when things go really wrong, it’s the people who are stuck with cash who have no back-up. A trader has lost N300million cash in the inferno that destroyed Kano’s Sabon Gari market, overnight on Saturday… Over 3,800 shops were burnt in the inferno, described as the worst market fire disaster in Nigeria, with  chairman of Sabon Gari Market traders’ association, Alhaji Nafi’u Nuhu Indabo saying  over 75 per cent of the market was burnt down. From  Trader loses N300m cash in Kano’s market fire | The NEWS Remember when the Japanese tsunami hit? The bank and ATM networks went down (for a while) but the mobile phone networks stayed up.All of those people who had prepared for disaster by tucking away cash at home? Their money was washed awa...

xxx Privacy.com lets you create “burner” cards that are valid only for one-time use. From Privacy.com's virtual Visas are burner debit cards that keep online shoppers safe | PCWorld This isn’t really a new idea, since the idea of single-use, disposable virtual cards has been around for ever. (I do like the idea of calling them “burner” cards, however as I think that’s a super bit of marketing.) Anyway, the scheme works by getting you to hand over your online banking username and password… wait, what? Now imagine what this kind of service might look like in the UK in a couple of year’s time, post-PSD2. 

I had the great good fortune to be asked to chair Leadership Workshop on Personal Data at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. We had presentations from the US and EU and a global panel to discuss the ways in which digital identity can contribute to a digital society.  During the discussions, which obviously in the GSMA context touched on the role of mobile phones in digital identity infrastructure, I began to reflect on the extent to which privacy should be an emergent property of the chosen infrastructure. In other words, can we use the tolls that we have our disposal now (smart cards, biometrics, the internet and so on) to construct a digital identity infrastructure that delivers privacy to citizens in the same way that seat belts deliver safety to drivers: built in, not optional, unobtrusive, cost effective, sensible. Where’s the seat belt for my digital identity? Now, I tend to have rather fixed views on this topic, because I’ma big fan of pseudonymity and ident...

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the idea of using the blockchain to “do something” about identity, so I thought I’d put together a few blog posts with some of our thoughts on the topic, gathered from a few of the different projects that we are involved with. Lots of people seem to think that putting identity on the blockchain is a good thing to. But, as many other people have pointed out, in order to come up with some kind of idea as to what exactly the blockchain is going to do is first necessary to come up with some idea about what the identity problem is and then come up with some more specific ideas about how exactly a blockchain (or, more generally, any other form of shared ledger) might solve them. The idea for this blog post began when my colleagues were putting together some ideas to present at the Open Identity eXchange (OIX) meeting in London few weeks ago. I thought it might be useful to contribute some of our thoughts around that presentation, in their in...

xxx Thus, a blockchain can act as a provenance protocol for data across disparate semi-trusting organizations. From Will Provenance Be the Blockchain's Break Out Use Case in 2016? - CoinDesk xxx

xxx The point being that replacing legacy infrastructure with new technology that change how settlement and clearing is done is an inherently complex process (where everything depends on everything else and is what is known as tightly coupled. This means the tolerance for error is low, particularly in times of extreme financial stress. The goal for the finance industry with the help of distributed ledger technology, should be to reduce complexity, lower costs, and enhance stability. So while real time gross settlement is something that is desirable it must be implemented with caution to make sure the above goals are met. From Distributed Settlement: Distributed Ledgers for Real-Time Bank Settlements — SAMMANTICS xxx

xxx Now in limited release, select users can use Venmo to pay for event tickets on Gametime, and to have gourmet meals delivered on Munchery, with more merchants and additional functionality coming soon. From Now, pay in your favorite apps with Venmo — The Venmo Blog xxx

xxx "As long as our customers know that they had the control to turn the services off and on, our consensus was people really valued some of the services we were testing," From Can Banks Leverage the Bluetooth Beacons that Retailers Are Testing? | American Banker xxx

xxx IT giant Intel is running an internal blockchain trial centered on a fantasy sports market. The proof of concept works by enabling the exchange of digitized assets that represent shares of different sports teams. Each contestant is given a set of shares, as well as a quantity of in-game currency called "mikels". From Intel is Testing a Blockchain it Built With a Fantasy Sports Game - CoinDesk xxx

xxx In our paper – “Are Payment Card Contracts Unfair?” – published at Financial Cryptography 2016 we show that customers have too many PINs to remember them unaided and therefore it is unrealistic to expect customers to comply with all the rules banks set: to choose unguessable PINs, not write them down, and not use them elsewhere (even with different banks). From Are Payment Card Contracts Unfair? | Bentham's Gaze To be honest, Stephen has got a point. I do everything that I’m not supposed to. I set all my credit cards to the same PIN as soon as I get them.

xxx This is a totally bizarre story from Cryptsy. A PDF has been posted of a contract that Big Vern (Paul Vernon) signed, in Florida, for getting the 13,000 lost coins that were reported hacked. The deal is to pay 1750 BTC for that, with contingencies to get the lost LTC and other litecoins._ From Bitcoin Futures Guide Markets Blog - Bitcoin Markets Guide - Top BTC Futures Exchanges xxx

xxx All that info, and much more, is locked away in your credit/debit card transaction history. Just being able to search your transactions helps tremendously (thanks, Mint). But what if you had ready access to all the information on your receipt? From Telling Personal Stories via Bank Transaction History - Finovate xxx

xxx An ethical hacker has urged firms to implement network access control (NAC) as he warned of the growing security threat posed by the Internet of Things (IoT). Speaking during a Q&A session for the upcoming CRN Security Summit, Ken Munro, founder of Pen Test Partners, claimed that security standards are being forgotten in the stampede to get IoT devices to market. From Security standards being forgotten in IoT stampede, says expert | CRN xxx

xxx Bangladesh’s central bank chief resigned on Tuesday, the finance minister said, after hackers stole $81 million from the nation’s foreign reserves in an audacious cyber-heist that has hugely embarrassed the government. From Bangladesh central bank governor quits over $81m heist | Inquirer News xxx

  Gottfried Leibbrandt, the CEO of SWIFT, gives the keynote speech at the European Payment Summit 2016. I really like the annual European Payment Summit , which is why I’ve been going along to it for many years. It’s small scale, hype-free and attended by a lot of European payments practitioners that I respect. This year was the 15th summit and, just as last year, the topic of instant payments pervaded many of the sessions. Now, in the UK, we know all about the popularity of instant payments. We are all familiar with the steadily growing volumes for the U.K.’s Faster Payments Service (FPS), but I don’t think the experiences that we have had to date really illustrate where instant payments is going. Having wandered in and out of a few of the sessions at the Summit and spent some time talking to people who are actual experts over coffee (and, I have to admit, a few glasses of Hoegaarden) I think that I detected a change in the focus of the thinking around instant payments. The empha...

With unintentional hilarity, an FBI special agent said… What Mr. Dennis may have thought was a nickel and dime theft was… From Brink's Worker Stole $200,000 in Quarters: FBI - NBC News xxx

xxx his led to a USD 23 billion (CNY 150 billion) ‘loss’ in potential transaction fees for China’s banks and UnionPay in 2015 as overall consumer spend continued to shift from traditional card payments where banks are strong, to online payments, where they are weak. This number is projected to increase to USD 61 billion (CNY 400 billion) by 2020. From China: banks lost USD 22 bln to Alibaba and Tencent businesses in 2015 | The Paypers xxx

xxx RTGS has certain perils that distributed ledgers may exacerbate particularly when it comes to implementing two new things (RTGS & Distributed Ledger Technology) at once in a highly complex system (which financial markets are). From Distributed Settlement: Distributed Ledgers for Real-Time Bank Settlements — SAMMANTICS xxx

xxx Blockchain: a short-lived illusion or a real game changer? Experts discuss if, and how, blockchain can revolutionise payments From EPC | Newsletter - Article I’m going to sound sound really mean now, and I don’t mean to offend, but I want to make a serious point: what is the point of articles like this? They suffer from two fundamental flaws They lack a basic model to facilitate communication between business strategists and technologyist They lack an understandable narrative about the use of the new technology. xxx

xxx Depositors at some of the largest U.S. banks are finally going to get the chance to do something quick and simple: send money to another person's account instantaneously by mobile phone. The idea has been in the works for at least five years, and in the meantime, Silicon Valley has made incursions into the industry's role as a payment intermediary. But now, big banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America Corp, Wells Fargo & Co and U.S. Bancorp are starting to plug into a system they jointly own, called clearXchange, that will allow each others' customers to transfer money in a flash when they split a dinner check, rent payment or vacation bill. "What we are doing now is delivering payments in real time, which is what our customers have asked for," Mary Harman, managing director for payments at Bank of America, said in an interview. The bank is one of two that have started rolling out the system to customers. While technology companies lik...

xxx rue, it is likely that a significant share – perhaps half – of dollars and euros circulates internationally. Some portion of this is surely abetting illegal activity and tax evasion. (In arresting Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Mexican drug lord, two months ago, authorities found a room containing more than $200m, and this was not a first.) Then again, dollars and euros, including large-denomination notes, are also used for legal purposes. Even so, there still appears to be a very large share circulating in domestic underground economies, estimated to be at least 7-8 per cent of gross domestic product for the USand considerably higher for Europe. From Paper money is unfit for a world of high crime and low inflation - FT.com xxx

xxx The Wall Street Journal reports that lenders who had once been keen on the concept of using Facebook data to evaluate borrowers have soured on the idea, thanks to regulatory restrictions, and recent changes in the data that Facebook shares with third parties. From Facebook Is Not The Great Predictor Of Creditworthiness It Was Hoped To Be – Consumerist Interesting that the headline implies that Facebook is not a predictor of creditworthiness, but that’s not what the article says. The article says that lenders have been pegged back by regulators and cut off by Facebook. This suggests to me that Facebook data is at worst unproved as a predictor and persons of a more conspiratorial bent might conjecture that Facebook knows this, which is why it is cutting off the data flow until such time as it develops its own products or partnerships.

xxx The deal will incorporate Chase Pay into the Starbucks mobile app for payments at more than 7,500 Starbucks locations, starting in the fall. Starbucks' mobile app, which is largely developed and maintained in-house, is used for over 10% of its U.S. in-store sales. From Chase Pay Deal with Starbucks Strengthens the Bank s Mobile Muscle | PaymentsSource Integrating a new payment mechanism into physical stores is a hassle. POS systems need upgrading, staff need training, deals need making. But adding a new payment mechanism into a retailer’s app is, by comparison, trivial.

xxx If all a CBDC did was to substitute for cash – if it bore no interest and came without any of the extra services we get with bank accounts – people would proba bly still want to keep most of their money in commercial banks From Speech by Ben Broadbent at the London School of Economics, London, on Wednesday 2 March 2016 - speech886.pdf xxx

xxx A distributed and irreversible system for trust management, which stores personal data, could offer a hotbed for doxing and identity theft – and even undermine an individual’s right to be forgotten. From What Airbnb’s blockchain proposal means for privacy Indeed it could, which is why it should not store personal data.

xxx Poland’s mBank has withdrawn the facility for customers to add mobile versions of their debit cards to the NFC payments services offered by mobile network operators T-Mobile and Orange. Instead, the bank has told NFC World, it will focus on supporting bank-backed mobile payments service Blik and the launch of its own host card emulation (HCE) based service later this year. From mBank cancels NFC SIM deals in favour of HCE and bank-backed Blik mobile payments • NFC World+ xxx

xxx In effect, he offers an elegant refinement of the concept of “narrow banking”, which seeks to ensure that all deposits are covered by safe, liquid assets. From Uncertainty principles: ‘The End of Alchemy’, by Mervyn King - FT.com xxx

xxx Chargebacks for card-present transactions increased 50% following the Oct. 1 EMV liability shift, From EMV Chargebacks Proving To Be a Card-Present Merchant Problem You understand why this, I assume. It’s because before 1st October, if you spotted a $3.95 charge at Starbucks on your statement and you knew that you couldn’t possibly have made that transaction, then you would call up your issuer and complain and they would just eat the charge because it would have been more trouble than it’s worth to go back to Starbucks, pull the receipt, check the signature if there was one etc etc. However, after 1st October, if you spot a bogus $3.95 charge on your account and call up, the issuer will check the transaction codes and, if you had a chip card but it was swiped by a merchant who didn’t have (or didn’t use) a chip reader, then the $3.95 is charged back to the merchant. The net result is — entirely as expected and as it should be — that merchants see big increases in card-present ...

xxx Essential information for the ASPSP to make an informed authorisation decision when prompted with a payment or account information request from a TPP consists of: What is the functional scope of the transaction? (what payment needs to be executed or what account information needs to be provided and to whom?); Did the person requesting the transaction, actually consent to exactly this functional scope? and Who is the person requesting this transaction? (and is he actually a mandated ‘controller’ of the respective account?) Of From Banks taking liability for XS2A transactions: ‘Just because a TPP says so?’ xxx

The European Central Bank (ECB) interest rate for bank deposits is currently minus 0.3% and economic theory would predict that at a minus rate, depositors (and this includes companies as well as banks and individuals) would prefer to hold cash rather than pay the central bank to look after their money for them. It has to be said that this doesn’t appear to have happened on a large scale yet, but clearly one of the reasons why economists are interested in getting rid of cash is in order to allow the interest rates to go further into negative territory in order to stimulate economic activity over hoarding. Now, it clearly costs something to manage cash over and above the cost of managing an electronic deposit hence it is interesting to speculate what the crossover rate might be, the modern version of the old “specie point” at which it was cheaper to hold bullion for monetary purposes rather than paper instruments. In Germany, this calculation is being made. The Bavarian Savings Bank Ass...

xxx I posted a screenshot of the email, and a few lines about how I would not be using Twitter until they figured out how to stop making incidents like this one (gross, but comparatively benign) a less constant component of my Twitter experience. From Twitter Has Become a Park Filled With Bats -- Following: How We Live Online xxx