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xxx "Under the concept, a group of ATMs serves as nodes within a Blockchain-powered network. There they share transactions via a distributed database, maintaining a high degree of security and uptime." Major Payment Processor Files Patent for Blockchain-based ATM Network xxx

xxx "Alipay, WeChat Wallet, and other Chinese third party payment platforms use financial incentives to encourage users to take money out of their bank accounts and temporarily store it on the platform itself." China’s Future is Definitely Cashless - The News Lens International Edition xxx

xxx "Social networks should be obliged to ban anonymous accounts. If they refuse to do so voluntarily, government regulators should force the issue." Facebook and Twitter Are Too Big to Allow Fake Users xxx

xxx Researchers talk of the “privacy paradox”: when asked, people say that they care much more about their privacy than their actions would suggest. From The “free” economy comes at a cost xxx

The Global Chief Product Officer at Citi Fintech said earlier this year that… Money will always be emotional – Each money exchange represents a need, a want, a desire, a belief, a commitment. The value we place on money has always been driven by our emotions. From The Deeper Meaning of Money | Carey OConnor Kolaja | Pulse | LinkedIn This is why I harbour the deep-seated suspicion that there is a strong link between the many forms of money that will be forged in the digital revolution and the communities that they serve. In an industrial age, it was simply not possible to have a thousand different currencies circulating in a city. But in the very near future, their may be millions, each of them addressing different emotional niches.

xxx Bitcoin is based on a public record of transactions known as the blockchain. Law enforcement has gotten better at analyzing the data and catching criminals. As a result, criminals are starting to use other digital currencies such as monero, which is built specifically for increased user privacy. From Dark web finds bitcoin increasingly more of a problem than a help, tries other digital currencies xxx

xxx Web users in China are facing a series of new rules from the Cyberspace Administration of China that will take effect from 1 October… with digital platforms potentially having to scan identity cards before allowing users to post online. From Chinese social media users face harsh new rules on digital identity | Mobile Marketing Magazine xxx

xxx Facebook's F8 developer conference on Tuesday brought the launch of the beta version of Delegated Account Recovery, a way for the social network to be the backup security key in case you forget your password on different, non-Facebook services. From Facebook wants to kill the password - Apr. 19, 2017 xxx

xxx View more sharing options Shares 42 Michael Safi in Delhi @safimichael Thursday 24 August 2017 10.01 BST First published on Thursday 24 August 2017 07.15 BST India’s top court has unanimously declared that privacy is a fundamental right, in a landmark judgment that could derail the world’s largest biometric identity card scheme. From Indian court rules privacy a 'fundamental right' in battle over national ID cards | World news | The Guardian xxx

xxx China’s two biggest bitcoin exchanges, Huobi and OKCoin, collectively invested around 1 billion yuan ($150 million) of idle client funds into “wealth management products“—which are often high-yielding and risky—for their own gain From Huobi and OKCoin, China’s two biggest bitcoin (BTC) exchanges, helped themselves to $150 million in idle client funds — Quartz xxx

xxx "Facebook, unlike Twitter, has a strict policy against multiple personal accounts and pseudonyms -- which it doesn't enforce" Facebook and Twitter Are Too Big to Allow Fake Users Since I have pseudonymous accounts of both Facebook and Twitter, I know that neither of them enforce this rule because, apart from any ethical considerations, they can’t. If I create a Twitter account as Lord Tantamount Horseposture, who are Twitter to say that it isn’t my name (especially in the UK, where it is a freeborn Englishman’s right to call himself whatever he pleases). Forcing women fleeing domestic violence, political dissidents and people with beliefs different from their employers’ to post under their “real” names gets us nowhere, as a moment’s thought about the topic will reveal. xxx "Social networks should be obliged to ban anonymous accounts. " Facebook and Twitter Are Too Big to Allow Fake Users If anything they should be forced to ban verified accounts,...

xxx "Social networks should be obliged to ban anonymous accounts. " Facebook and Twitter Are Too Big to Allow Fake Users xxx

xxx Much has been made of the rise of fintech [but] according to a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF), traditional banks are more vulnerable to competition from another source: tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, and Google. From Tech firms like Amazon (AMZN), Facebook (FB), and Google (GOOGL) are the biggest competitive threats to the banking industry — Quartz As I have said for some time, it is not all obvious to me that what we refer to as the “challenger” banks in the UK (i.e., the new banks who have obtained licences in recent years) are not really challengers at all.

xxx “Everybody I know in the cryptocurrency space has gotten their phone number stolen,” said Joby Weeks, a Bitcoin entrepreneur. Mr. Weeks lost his phone number and about a million dollars’ worth of virtual currency late last year, despite having asked his mobile phone provider for additional security after his wife and parents lost control of their phone numbers. From Identity Thieves Hijack Cellphone Accounts to Go After Virtual Currency - The New York Times xxx

xxx Mapping the IT landscape of a large organisation is probably not an easy task and Rabobank is attempting to resolve this via the construction of a 3D model of its own structure and supporting IT systems. From Rabobank builds 3D model of its own IT landscape » Banking Technology xxx xxx

xxx Another aspect of working with a chatbot in Facebook Messenger that makes bankers nervous is allowing Facebook itself to see customer data. From How TD Ameritrade tackles security in Facebook Messenger chatbot | American Banker xxx

xxx The top 10 accounts that innovators follow are: 1. Richard Branson (@richardbranson), founder of Virgin Group 2. Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), entrepreneur, investor and software engineer 3. Benedict Evans (@benedictevans), partner at Andreessen Horowitz 4. Glen Gilmore (@GlenGilmore), attorney and principle of Gilmore Business Network 5. Scott Kirsner (@ScottKirsner), Boston Globe columnist, and editor of Innovation Leader 6. Henry Blodget (@hblodget), editor, founder and CEO of Business Insider 7. Bill Gates (@BillGates), co-founder of Microsoft 8. Andrew McAfee (@amcafee), director of the Center for Digital Business at MIT’s Sloan School of Management 9. Sam Maule (@sammaule), manager at Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting Group and chief inspiration officer at Digital Finance Institute 10. David Birch (@dgwbirch), author and Consult Hyperion’s director The top 10 publications from which innovators share content include YouTube, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, TechCru...

xxx U.S. investigators uncovered a global financial network run by a senior Islamic State official that funneled money to an alleged ISIS operative in the U.S. through fake eBay transactions, according to a recently unsealed FBI affidavit. From FBI Says ISIS Used eBay to Send Terror Cash to U.S. - WSJ xxx

xxx When a book comes along with glowing praise on its sleeve from Kenneth Rogoff and an introduction by Andrew Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England, you know you’ve got something hot on your hands. This analysis of money by one of the world’s leading experts on the subject does not disappoint… Birch is brilliant at bringing together these disparate historical strands, through the birth of the great European trading centres, up to the present day. The central insight of all this is that money is essentially a technology, just like any other and that technologies change—and improve—over time. In other words, money is not fixed. And it is certainly not just coins and notes. And what of the future of money—will it be characterised by a drive towards a small number of unified currencies, or towards a multitude? Birch opts for the latter. In future, communities will develop their own stores of value, Birch says, independent of governments and central banks. The growing popula...

xxx According to the People’s Bank of China, at the end of the first quarter, China had 6.3 billion bank cards in circulation, up 11% from a year earlier. In that first quarter, the value of swiping plastic rose to 15.2 trillion yuan, up 14%. From Visa applies for direct bank-card clearing access in China xxx

xxx There were just under 1.4 billion card payments in the UK in June, a monthly record. And with the number of card transactions up 12% in 12 months, UK cards have enjoyed their highest annual rate of growth since June 2008… [a significant] factor was the increase in the use of contactless card payments, which soared by 143%. Contactless payments accounted for 34% of all card transactions From UK enjoys Summer of Love for contactless cards | Euromoney xxx

xxx Consumers and businesses made 15.4 billion cash payments in 2016 - down from 17.2 billion in 2015, according to figures released by UK Finance. However despite the decline, cash was still used 25% more often than the second most frequently-used method; debit cards (11.6 billion). During 2016, cash represented almost half (44%) of all payments made by consumers - the second year in a row where consumers used cash for fewer than 50% of all payments. During the same period, cash payments reached £240 billion, accounting for 15% of the total value of consumer spending, a decline of five percent compared to the previous year. More than one in four (26%) consumer cash payments were for a value of £1 or less, and more than three in five (61%) were for a value of £5 or less. From Uneasy sits the crown as cash use continues decline xxx

xxx "In that time, the network structure has remained remarkably constant. In 2013 each wallet was connected on average to 3.12 others. In 2016 that number was 3.53." Here’s the Biggest Security Threat to the World’s Third-Largest Cryptocurrency - MIT Technology Review xxx

As I wrote a while ago, the Chinese were first with the great transition from commodity money to paper money. They had the necessary technologies (you can’t have paper money without paper and you can’t do it at scale without printing) and, more importantly, they had the bureaucracy. "In 1260, Genghis’ grandson Kublai Khan became Emporer and determined that it was a burden to commerce and taxation to have all sorts of currencies in use, ranging from copper ‘cash’ to iron bars, to pearls to salt to specie, so he decided to implement a new currency. The Khan decided to replace copper, iron, commodity and specie cash with a paper currency. A paper currency! Imagine how crazy that must have sounded! Replacing stuff with printing!" Introducing a new currency is easy – dgwbirch – Medium Just as Marco Polo and other medieval travellers returned along the Silk Road breathless with astonishing tales of paper money, so commentators (e.g., me) began tumbling off of flights from Beij...

xxx "Alipay now controls 70% of China's mobile payment market, while Yu'e Bao, which serves as a repository for cash leftover from online spending, emerged as the world's largest money market fund this year with $165.6 billion of assets under management." Ant Financial seen becoming world's top consumer bank- Nikkei Asian Review xxx

xxx "once they found a seller they trusted, only 30 percent shopped around" Fake negative reviews are a cheap way to screw up darknet drug marketplaces / Boing Boing xxx

xxx "Other users assumed that because the roll-out of the new cards introduced contactless technology, the key fobs would too. However, the key fobs don't have any contactless functionality, so those who have tried to use them as contactless cards, assumed they were broken, and missed out on the points." New Tesco Clubcards cause nightmares for shoppers - AOL UK Money xxx

xxx "Scams of this type are becoming fairly common on the ‘killer’ P2P payments app, leading others on Twitter to question its reliability as a payment method, especially when other online transaction routes exist—like cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, for instance." Bitcoin vs Venmo: Lessons Learned from ‘Craigslist Jeff’ | Bank Innovation xxx

xxx "A German appeals court on Wednesday rejected the pleas from a dead girl's parents who wanted access to the 15-year-old's Facebook account. The social networking site fought the parents, claiming that opening the account would breach the privacy of the girl's contacts." Court: Dead daughter’s parents have no right to access her Facebook account | Ars Technica xxx

xxx "14% of China’s population relies on mobile payments to get around, carrying no cash, according to a survey conducted by (link in Chinese) Renmin University of China" Alibaba's (BABA) "cashless week" to boost mobile payments is angering China's central bank — Quartz xxx

xxx "A year 8 student was bragging to her friends that she's been earning money by opening bank accounts at all the high street banks and given £25 to give the details and send internet banking login details/key pads to someone." Why are Britain’s banks blaming customers for online banking fraud? | Miles Brignall | Opinion | The Guardian xxx

xxx "The judge agreed and Gideon sent the documents to Santander's court orders team, which faxed over the fraudster's bank statements, postal addresses, email addresses and phone numbers." Hero who tracked bank fraudsters to win back £20k | Daily Mail Online Unfortunately, there’s nothing in the story to suggest that the police were able to use these details to collar the fraudsters.

xxx "‘These small charges can really add up and this change will mean shoppers across the country have that bit of extra cash to spend on the things that matter to them.’" August • Future of Retail - Credit card payment fees to be scrapped xxx

xxx "The motoring organisation's survey of 16,000 members suggests seven out of 10 would look for parking elsewhere rather than use the 'pay by phone' meters." via Drivers avoid pay-by-phone parking bays, says the AA - BBC News Who are these people? I sign with relief when I pull into a car park and see the signs that I can pay with my phone instead of rummaging around on my hands in knees to try to find a couple of quid in coins. I love RingGo. It works great. One minor plea though: even Arriva buses have managed to add ApplePay to their in-app payment options, so please can you? I forget my CVV about one in every three times I use the app and I’d like to be able to switch between personal and business cards on the fly.

xxx "Data on Sia are broken into pieces and stored on multiple computers, a method intended to keep data accessible even when some hosts are offline." Their invention is valued at $250 million. Here’s why they’re not satisfied - The Boston Globe I remember writing about “eternity servers” a couple of decades ago (approvingly, as I thought it was a good idea).

xxx "She was shocked to learn in 2014 that Sammons had sold the painting to a Liechtenstein gallery for the ‘egregiously low price’ of $650,000, her suit says." Countess claims art dealer shortchanged her: suit | New York Post This is the sort of thing that can happen when you have a market that is as opaque as, say, Bitcoin trading.

The Talmud also deals with identity in the context of reputation and social networks See Tractate Sanhedrin – folio 23a https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.23a.22?lang=bi As Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: Witnesses do not sign a document unless they know who is signing with them. One does not sign a document unless he recognizes that those signing with him are fit to bear witness. Returning to the matter itself, Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: Witnesses do not sign a document unless they know who is signing with them. That is also taught in a baraita: This is what the scrupulous people of Jerusalem would do: They would not sign a document unless they knew who was signing with them, and they would not sit in judgment unless they knew who was sitting with them, and they would not join a meal unless they knew who was reclining, i.e., eating, with them. The medieval scholar Rashi (1040-1105) explains that one needs to know one’s co-witness, because of the potential reputational damage to on...

xxx "Tales of lonely hearts who believe they have found their match, only to be ripped off by money-grabbing crooks are legion. And according to Grant Langston, chief executive of one of the leading global dating and relationship sites eHarmony, many cases are down to organised crime." eHarmony boss Grant Langston reveals the mantra for daters | This is Money xxx

xxx "Deutsche Bank and partners Allianz, Axel Springer, Daimler and Postbank [will] work on a standard access procedure for online activities, with customers using a 'master key' for registration and identification across industries." Deutsche Bank backs pan-industry online identity platform xxx

xxx ...if banks were allowed to rely on the work other organizations have done to identify customers they could eliminate redundant paperwork and spare the customer a branch visit to open another account… But banks would need a lot to change before they would partake in this sort of outsourcing of identity provision. At the moment, they are clearly liable, under anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer rules, if they provide accounts to bad actors, wittingly or not." How liability stands in way of banks’ digital ID ambitions | American Banker xxx

xxx ...if banks were allowed to rely on the work other organizations have done to identify customers they could eliminate redundant paperwork and spare the customer a branch visit to open another account… But banks would need a lot to change before they would partake in this sort of outsourcing of identity provision. At the moment, they are clearly liable, under anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer rules, if they provide accounts to bad actors, wittingly or not." How liability stands in way of banks’ digital ID ambitions | American Banker xxx

xxx "For years, cards have accounted for the majority of retail spending by value, but 2016 was the first year they also accounted for more than 50% of all transactions. It is also the first time that debit cards have overtaken cash. They now account for 42.6% of all transactions, putting them a whisker ahead of notes and coins, which fell almost five percentage points to 42.3%." Cash no longer king as contactless payments soar in UK stores | Money | The Guardian xxx

xxx "For the first time, notes and coins have been toppled from their position as the UK’s number one payment method. Cards now account for more than half of all retail purchases, according to the main body representing shops." Cash no longer king as contactless payments soar in UK stores | Money | The Guardian xxx

xxx "‘Banks are still placing too much responsibility on consumers to spot and protect themselves from sophisticated online scams. We’ve heard from many people who have lost life-changing amounts of money through bank transfer fraud, through no fault of their own, who are unlikely to get their money back from the banks involved.’" RBS boss says customers are to blame if they're defrauded | Daily Mail Online xxx

xxx In a trial with 10 other charities, it raised an average donation of £3.07, compared with £1 for cash From NSPCC's contactless face-to-face trial raised three times as much as cash | Third Sector xxx

xxx At its height back in 2000, the U.S. cash equities trading desk at Goldman Sachs’s New York headquarters employed 600 traders, buying and selling stock on the orders of the investment bank’s large clients. Today there are just two equity traders left. Automated trading programs have taken over the rest of the work, supported by 200 computer engineers. From As Goldman Embraces Automation, Even the Masters of the Universe Are Threatened - MIT Technology Review xxx

The SEPA Instant Payments scheme goes live in November.  The EPC’s SCT Inst scheme will enable interoperable euro credit transfers in SEPA for transactions of up to €15,000 initially to be available on the payee’s account within ten seconds. From SEPA INSTANT CREDIT TRANSFERS ARRIVE - Payments Cards & Mobile xxx

xxx UK home secretary Amber Rudd has called on messaging apps like WhatsApp to ditch end-to-end encryption, arguing that it aids terrorists. [She] said that “real people” don’t need the feature and that tech companies should do more to help the authorities deal with security threats. From UK home secretary Amber Rudd says 'real people' don't need end-to-end encryption | Business Insider I am not privy to this level of decision making in the body politics, but I suppose that Amber’s plan is to make everyone else’s communications as vulnerable to hackers, pranksters and agents of foreign powers as MPs’ communications are. Parliament has been hit by a “sustained and determined” cyber-attack by hackers attempting to gain access to MPs’ and their staffers’ email accounts… Fewer than 90 email accounts were compromised during the cyber attack on Westminster, sources told the Press Association. From  Cyber-attack on parliament leaves MPs unable to access emails | Politics |...