Snippets

xxx Bank of America and Wells Fargo are banning cash deposits into others' accounts, citing security concerns. From Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) to ban cash deposits into others’ accounts - Bizwomen . xxx

xxx "Airbnb doesn't even share its data with councils, so how are councils expected to enforce the 90-day limit?" From "How Airbnb bandits rent out properties to prostitutes, drug dealers and party animals | Daily Mail Online" . xxx

xxx "Rossi had posed as a £120,000-a-year cancer specialist and falsified references to rent the £800-a-week flat." From "How Airbnb bandits rent out properties to prostitutes, drug dealers and party animals | Daily Mail Online" . xxx

xxx "That moment when you see a bunch of weird charges on your credit card or bank statement: Cigars in Brazil? Airline tickets in Nigeria? A tank of gas in Las Vegas? Someone has obtained your credit or debit card number, and now you're going to have to suffer months of updating it with all your utilities and other vendors. How did these thieves get your card information? Was it something you did? Should you have done something differently? Today we're going to look at some of the most common ways credit card numbers are compromised, correct some popular misinformation, and point out a few tips to more secure charging habits. For this show, we don't really differentiate between credit cards and debit cards. From the perspective of keeping card info secure, there's very little difference. Either is just as likely to show up in a large database of card data that some thief acquired, and another purchased; that latter one is either making online charges in bulk, o...

xxx "For Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay and every other pay, #appandpay is way more important than #tapandpay" From "NFC isn’t the real reason for Apple Pay | Consult Hyperion" . xxx

Hi Brian, My family and I are big fans and long time listeners show and I really enjoyed your pop quiz in episode 654 on 18th December. Your question about card payments caught my attention because I am quite a boring person and this is one of the few things that I know anything about. You asked "Which of these three is the riskiest way to use your card?” and gave the three options Using your card via a phone app such as Apple Pay or Android Pay. Swiping the magnetic strip. Using a chip card. You correctly give the answer B, swiping the magnetic strip, but your explanation is incorrect. Whether you use a strip or a chip, they both pass your card number to the merchant terminal and from there it ends up in the merchant system although it should be encrypted for safety. Chip cards do not have an encrypted connection to the bank and they do not use tokens. The reason for using chip cards is that they cannot be counterfeited: even if I steal your card number, date of b...

xxx Safaricom is being investigated for the Saturday outage of its M-Pesa service that left millions of customers unable to receive or send money. The blackout is estimated to have cost the economy billions of shillings. From Safaricom probed over costly M-Pesa outage - Daily Nation . xxx xxx CA statistics show that about Sh1.5 trillion moved through the M-Pesa platform in the three months to June, translating to an average Sh16.3 billion per day or about Sh679.3 million every hour. M-Pesa agents were among the biggest losers in the blackout that stalled their business for hours. Multiple banks have hooked up their systems to M-Pesa. From Safaricom probed over costly M-Pesa outage - Daily Nation .   xxx Do the math. Suppose there are 100,000 agents with 100 “super agents” (network aggregators) managing 1,000 agents each. Suppose there are 100m customers (there are currently around 20m). Suppose a customer’s M-PESA balance and associated flags/status are 100 bytes. So th...

xxx Roughly three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) say they make no purchases using cash during a typical week, up slightly from 24% in 2015. From More Americans do not use cash in a typical week | Pew Research Center . xxx

xxx “Does the government have an obligation or a duty to provide risk free money to the general population? Does that duty persist after cash usage drops off?” From At least 15 central banks are serious about getting into digital currency - MIT Technology Review . xxx

xxx Even as cryptocurrencies collapse, DRW is not the only company persevering with experiments in both digital currencies, tokens and blockchain. From Corners of Wall Street remain undeterred by crypto crash | Financial Times . xxx

xxx A good outcome would be for data portability to encourage and facilitate competition at a layer above these data stewards, amongst the applications that provide direct value to people. From Data portability: the role governments should play – The ODI . xxx

xxx They can ensure the security and privacy of people porting data by developing and encouraging the adoption of common approaches around things like identity, authentication and permissions. From Data portability: the role governments should play – The ODI . Indeed, and I think the Three Domain Identity (3DID) model - which looks at the identification, authentication and authorisation (permissions) domains separately but in a consistent and logical framework - is a good way to do this.

xxx The most common answer to the problem of overly powerful firms is to break them up, as U.S. regulators once did to Standard Oil and AT&T. Yet that would destroy much of the value that these digital giants have created and probably do little to improve competition in the long run, since without structural reforms, killing today’s digital superstars would simply generate opportunities for new ones to emerge. There is a better solution: a progressive data-sharing mandate. From Why Governments Should Force Tech Companies to Share Their Data . xxx

xxx A cup of Mr Rashid’s tea costs 2,000 Somaliland shillings – equivalent to $0.25 or Dh0.92 – and his customers pay almost exclusively with their mobile phones. “I never see cash,” he tells The National. From Somaliland's world-leading move towards a cashless culture  - The National . xxx

xxx "They estimated between 15 and 35 per cent of all cash is doing its job - allowing Australians to buy everyday goods and services. But that leaves a lot of notes - at least 65 per cent of them - doing something other than being a means of exchange. Between 10 and 20 per cent have been hoarded by Australians with another 15 per cent sent overseas for cash hoarders there. The shadow economy, a notoriously difficult sector to measure, is thought to take up between 4 and 8 per cent of the outstanding notes. Between $40 million and $1 billion is held by drug dealers alone at any one time before they convert their earnings to assets. And then there's remaining cash that has simply disappeared. 'This suggests that $4 billion to $8 billion, or roughly 5 to 10 per cent of all banknotes on issue have been lost, destroyed, forgotten about, or are sitting in numismatic collections,' the researchers found." From "Expensive washing? Australia loses $8 billion in...

xxx "China's central bank on Monday warned that rejecting cash as a form of payment was illegal, saying that such practices could eventually could cause the loss of confidence in physical money and was unfair to those not accustomed to electronic payments." From "China says rejecting physical cash is illegal amid e-payments popularity - Business Insider" . xxx

I”m very wary of promulgating the “political correctness gone mad” meme, as it is so often a lazy reactionary knee-jerk response to changing times, but I could not resist tweeting about the news that a British police force launched an investigation after a man claimed he had been the victim of a "hate crime" when... a branch of the Post Office refused to accept his Scottish banknote. This incident has now indeed entered our official statistics as a hate crime. Frankly, this is mental. Scottish banknotes are not legal tender, even in Scotland , as I have explained before . The Post Office is no more obliged to accept a Scottish Fiver than it is to accept Euros, gold or cowrie shells. The story did, however, cause me to reflect on what will happen when, post-Brexit, Scotland votes to leave the UK. Will Scotland then join the euro or create its own currency? As supporters of Scottish independence insist, once Scotland becomes an independent country, it will be responsible for...

xxx "A young woman sits at a bar on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and orders a beer. The bartender asks for identification. The bar patron pulls out her phone, clicks on an app, and displays a digital version of her driver’s license showing she is over 21. In response, the bartender pulls out her own phone, clicks on the same app, uses it to scan the woman’s digital license, and verifies that her information is legit." From "Louisiana Adopts Digital Driver's Licenses - IEEE Spectrum" . I was beyond excited to discover than Louisiana is implementing a version of the “psychic ID” that I set out back in 2005!

xxx "Google CEO Sundar Pichai… expressed support for a national data protection law in the US, describing the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation as a ‘well-thought-out, well-crafted piece of legislation.’" From "What Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s visit to Congress taught us (spoiler: not a lot) - MIT Technology Review" . xxx

xxx "The first batch of Hongkongers picked up their new smart identity cards from kiosks and collection centres around the city on Monday. The new cards, complete with updated security details such as built-in radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and higher resolution photographs to support facial recognition, will replace the standard Hong Kong identification card, required of all residents." From "First Hongkongers collect new smart ID cards with replacement roll-out to start soon | South China Morning Post" . xxx

xxx What does clean tainted bitcoin is the FBI. They did this when they auctioned off the Silk Road wallets. From The battle over financial privacy - New Money Review . xxx

xxx Spanish banks have warned of the potential financial stability implications of Big Tech firms like Goolge, Amazon and Facebook entering the financial services industry. Red flags around the future roles of Big Tech firms in financial services were raised at an event organised by the University of Financial Studies (Cunef) in Madrid and the Spanish Banking Association. Regulatory issues topped the agenda, with access to financial data expected to play a key role in the coming battle between Big Tech firms and banks. The introduction of PSD2 and the move to Open Banking is expected to upset the competitive advantage enjoyed by banks, with Big Tech firms ready to benefit from asymmetric regulation and extend their appeal to consumers. From Spanish banks rail against Big Tech threat . xxx

xxx "‘Over the last five years, the replacement cycles of smartphones in the U.S. has has increased from an average of 20.6 to 24.1 months,’ says Jennifer Chan, global insight director at Kantar." From "Global, U.S. Growth in Smartphone Growth Starts to Decline" . xxx

xxx "Smartphone growth began to slow starting in 2013 or 2014. In 2016, it was suddenly in the single digits, and in 2017 global smartphone shipments, for the first time, actually declined — fewer smartphones were sold than in 2017 than in 2016." From "Global, U.S. Growth in Smartphone Growth Starts to Decline" . xxx

Interesting. I’m pretty well=versed in the arguments for and against cash, but in Japan at looks as if one of the dominant drivers is the shortage of young people to man checkouts. "According to the report ‘Cashless Vision,’ compiled by a panel of experts under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, cashless systems at retail stores will save manpower at a time when Japan desperately needs to improve productivity amid a labor shortage and declining population." From "Japan hesitantly moves toward a cashless society | The Japan Times" . xxx

xxx "Thieves are increasingly trying to smash or blast their way into UK cash machines - with the number of attacks on ATMs nearly doubling in four years. Attempts to steal cash have risen from 400 attacks in 2014 to 723 last year," From "Surge in gas and ram-raid ATM attacks - BBC News" . xxx

xxx " The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (collectively, the Agencies) are issuing this joint statement to encourage banks1 to consider, evaluate, and, where appropriate, responsibly implement innovative approaches to meet their Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering (BSA/AML) compliance obligations, in order to further strengthen the financial system against illicit financial activity. " From "" . In other words, go regtech.

xxx The introduction of electronic identity cards would address many voters’ concerns about immigration without the need for Brexit, a report from Global Future has found. From ID cards not Brexit ‘better at controlling immigration’ | The Week UK . xxx

xxx In addition to cryptocurreny custody solutions (for which, as stated elsewhere in the article, there is no demand whatsoever), State Street is also looking to a future markeplace of “tokenised" traditional assets. From State Street studying custody for both tokenized traditional assets and cryptocurrencies, but sees no current client demand - The Block . Why would anyone bother with 

xxx Built by ASX-listed Perth company Fastbrick Robotics (FBR), the Hadrian X machine recently successfully completed a series of tests, proving it was capable of complying with various building requirements. From Aussie bricklaying robot takes on tradies, building three-bed house in 72 hours - SmartCompany . xxx

xxx When a customer receives a call from Barclays and are concerned about the caller's identity, they will be offered the chance to receive an alert in their app or online banking confirming the details of the employee who is calling them. From Barclays reveals call verification system to stop phone scammers | This is Money . xxx

xxx The FATF’s identification principles, guidance and practices resulted in processes that are largely bureaucratic and do not ensure that identity fraud is effectively prevented. Strict identification requirements on the other hand may impact on financial inclusion, leaving the FATF with little leeway to raise its standards. From The FATF’s customer identification framework: fit for purpose? | Journal of Money Laundering Control | Vol 17, No 3 . xxx

  xxx The FATF’s identification principles, guidance and practices resulted in processes that are largely bureaucratic and do not ensure that identity fraud is effectively prevented. Strict identification requirements on the other hand may impact on financial inclusion, leaving the FATF with little leeway to raise its standards. From The FATF’s customer identification framework: fit for purpose? | Journal of Money Laundering Control | Vol 17, No 3 . xxx

xxx The current AML/CFT model appears almost completely ineffective in disrupting illicit finances and serious crime. From Uncomfortable truths? ML=BS and AML= BS2 | Journal of Financial Crime | Vol 25, No 2 . xxx

xxx The trainee member of staff with the London Ambulance Service flunked his paramedic exams but carried out “unauthorised” responses to 999 calls for several weeks. It is understood he was able to pose as a qualified paramedic by infiltrating an internal computer system used by emergency crews while they are on duty. From 'Fake' paramedic treats more than 100 patients in London before being discovered . xxx

xxx While Zelle is both free to the user and instantaneous, it costs the participating bank between $0.50 to $0.75 per transaction. So as Zelle’s transaction volume increases, so will each bank’s costs. From Bank Director :: Zelle Costs Bankers Money, Venmo Can Make Bankers Money . But surely as the volume rises, the per transaction costs (that go to fund the network) will go down.

xxx Free online bill payment has become table stakes in retail banking, and P2P may go that way as well. From Bank Director :: Zelle Costs Bankers Money, Venmo Can Make Bankers Money . xxx