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Alex Todd rather kindly called this a “most lucid explanation of digital identity management” I would highly recommend this presentation to anyone interested in understanding prospective blockchain based identity architectures From David | LinkedIn This is very kind, but as I said in the link, this is thinking out loud and far from a fully-developed solution. We’re working on parts of this for different clients and I can see that there is something there - a genuinely new way of solving some old problems - but it’s early days.

xxx Norway's BankID is to begin a pilot programme to test in-app authentication and biometric logins for one-click access to financial services. From Norway's BankID tests in-app authentication They’re using the Encap platform for this with TouchID and Android fingerprint support. I was a bit surprised when I read this story, because I thought that this system already existed in the Norway. And then I remembered that I read about this stuff a decade ago. Telenor says it will now work with the BankID consortium to develop an e-signature authentication system for use with mobile handsets. From  Norwegian telco and banks to develop mobile authentication system How has it taken a decade to implement the obviously sensible mobile solution? It makes complete sense for the mobile operators to provide this infrastructure and for the banks to use it, but they were never able to agree (I assume) on the business model.

Brian Rommele, who I always take very seriously about this kind of thing, says that it is clear that Apple Pay in the browser will be a very big deal indeed. In my early testing I can confirm that the checkout abandonment rate for websites that use Apple Pay Safari will be reduced significantly. From The Apple Pay Safari Vs. PayPal Battle For Web Transactions Is An Invalid Argument. — Medium xxx

xxx She waved an ID card in front of the couple and then she was escorted to read the meter where she wrote down the reading on a piece of paper. From Phoney electric meter inspector doing the rounds in Sherborne, report police | Blackmore Vale Magazine xxx

xxx Look no further than Japan’s hardware stores for a worrying new sign that consumers are hoarding cash—the opposite of what the Bank of Japan had hoped when it recently introduced negative interest rates. From Japanese Seeking a Place to Stash Cash Start Snapping Up Safes - WSJ xxx

I happened to working on a project looking at the impact of certain new technology-based finance plays on bank revenues a little while ago. For the (European) banks that we were looking at, net income for those functions broke down as 24 per cent from transfer functions, 43 per cent from payment functions, 19 percent from pooling functions and 14 percent for the rest. In other words, payments were about the biggest fraction of net income, and this income is under direct threat from alternatives (by which I mean instant payments and such like, not Bitcoin).  According to McKinsey, global payment revenues (which average 40 per cent of bank income worldwide, slightly less than in Europe) are about $1.7 trillion and will reach $2 trillion in 2020.The biggest fraction of this income (around a fifth) comes from the balances on payment accounts (in other words, interest foregone). Hence you can see why banks are worried that if payments shift to non-banks who hold those balances under non-ba...

new survey results from USA Technologies (USAT) suggest. The payments technology company, which enables electronic payments for self-service machines, compared consumer spending activity at 35 of its vending machines in urban areas with a high concentration of iPhone users between week one and week four of the installation of new digital signage promoting Apple Pay. Consumers made more contactless purchases: The vending machine providers saw an average contactless transaction revenue increase of 89%, implying that consumers are making more mobile payments. This was likely driven by the clear advertisement of Apple Pay. Total transactions increased: Consumers made more purchases overall. This was probably driven by an uptick in mobile payments, given the major increase in contactless transaction revenue. And the vending machines may have attracted many first-time users who were drawn in by the digital advertising of Apple Pay. Boosting awareness is key to unlocking pent-up demand amon...

xxx PayPal have blacklisted addresses which include the name "Isis" From B2fxxx: The tyranny of the algorithm yet again... xxx

xxx Given that a press officer from my own bank told me “You know, I’d never thought about using contactless abroad”, we clearly still have some way to go on this one. It’s a relatively new phenomenon and one that won’t have crossed many people’s minds until they’re confronted with a locked toilet door and a £1.50-per-transaction charge on the next bank statement. From The rise of contactless payments: Or, how Brexit could make it more expensive to go to the loo on holiday | CityMetric Actually, having been abroad once or twice recently, I’ve been using my reasonably splendid Curve card contactlessly all over the place precisely because it doesn’t add a foreign currency transaction fee. Oh, and remember boys and girls, never ever accept direct currency conversion (DCC) at point of sale. If the terminal says “do you want to be charged in your home currency £” or similar, always say NO. It is much better to be ripped of by your own bank that has at least a pretence of interest in ke...

xxx Alex Wrethman, owner of the Charlotte’s Group restaurant business, decided to make his most recent opening, W5, an entirely cashless affair. “We are entirely cashless, it’s cards and Apple Pay only. There’s no going to the bank. There’s no cash on site which takes about two and a half hours a day to count. We reduced our insurance as we don’t have cash handling and the opportunity for theft is not there,” he says. Are fintechs helping banks evolve – or planning a revolution? Read more Wrethman is passionate about cashless businesses and believes it is the way forward. He also says most customers “don’t care” as most use their cards or Apple Pay regularly anyway and prefer better prices as a result of cuts in administration. From Welcome to a cashless future where retailers recognise our faces | Guardian Small Business Network | The Guardian xxx

No. Could bitcoin technology help to ameliorate the conditions for some refugees in some circumstances? Well, that’s a very different question, and some people think yes. With a blockchain distributed database, when a Syrian refugee arrives in Greece, border authorities could check her identity on their copy of the ledger housing her ID and even her biometric data. From Can Bitcoin Technology Solve the Migrant Crisis? - WSJ So could anyone check her identity in this way? People traffickers? Warlords? Mafia hit men? Vigilantes searching for people who have posted rude comments about the King of Thailand? I presume not, which means this has to be a permissioned blockchain. But what would this permissioned blockchain store? Let’s continue thinking about loud about identity… The refugee is picked up by an NGO, NGO97. They take some biometric and register her in their database, unless she is already in it. The refugee now has a database entry REFUGEE97. The NGO writes a record to the...

xxx The National Retail Federation has flagged anti-trust concerns with the FTC, slating the PCI for allegedly enforcing standards that serve to cement the power of the major card schemes. From Retailers flag PCI anti-trust concerns with FTC xxx

xxx From the border district of Murshidabad, Jewel and his gang were able to get thousands of pre-activated SIM cards, which were used to open 2000 bank accounts, and which in turn were used to open 18,000 digital wallets. These wallets were then used to siphon off money from the bank… Innocent villagers from the nearby cities were given incentives to open bank account using the fake SIM cards; and these formed the base of the whole scam. From Digital Wallet Loophole Inspires 5 Engineering Students To Steal Rs 8.6 Crore In Kolkata xxx

xxx He says Apple Pay is appealing, but he wouldn't switch banks just to access that one feature. "Not over that. There's too much work involved just for tap-and-go," From Early days, but Apple Pay struggles outside U.S. | Reuters You can see his point. If you already have a contactless card that works everywhere, it’s not that exciting to be able to tap your phone instead of the card.

The most common online payment method in the vigorous and innovative Polish market is “Pay-By-Link”. Online e-payment: a commonly referred to as “e-transfer” or “Pay-By-Link” among Polish payment service providers; it is similar to Bank Transfer Initiated on the Internet but with added convenience and functionality for both merchant and customer. From Crossborder-Ecommerce | Payment Methods Poland | The Paypers xxx