Grid

I was listening to a fascinating debate about identity authentication, and one of the speakers referenced the fact that it was only because Dutch jews registered their identities at the start of the Second World War that so many died. I had not heard about this and immediately started Googling. Sure enough 75 per cent…

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she expected former Mastercard chief executive Ajay Banga to be elected president of the World Bank as nominations drew to a close. It is not surprising as, when nominations closed at 6pm in Washington yesterday, there were no other publicly declared candidates. Who is Mr. Banga? According to Wikipedia, Ajay…

FedNow is the faster payments service for America, backed by the US Government and delivered by the Federal Reserve banks. The thing is that you, like me, may be asking is this real? America is getting faster payments in 2023 when many other economies got them in the 2000s? Well, yes and no. The UK…

FIS with WorldPay just produced an interesting report about the state of global payments. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: THE STATE OF PAYMENTS TODAY In 2023, the Global Payments Report continues its core mission to detail the contours of consumer payment behaviour at checkout both in-store and online, and to offer merchants and the broader payments industry key…

I hadn’t really noticed the rise and rise of crypto firms sponsoring sport until recently. There are quite a number from Bedford to Crawley to Watford. Then there were the Super Bowl ads, such as that wonderful one from FTX last year. A year later, FTX has disappeared, as has many of its counterparts and dependents….

I claimed that the crisis of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Credit Suisse were isolated cases, specific to those institutions, and there is no financial contagion. Then we get all these headlines about Deutsche Bank being next. What’s going on? Well, I still claim it is not contagion, but there is lots of FUD (Fear,…

This week’s main blog discussions include … Invisible banking is the place to be A couple of headlines hit me recently. The first is that twitter is going to create a payments system: Twitter has begun applying for regulatory licences across the US and designing the software required to introduce payments across the social media…

Analysts, investors, industry commentators, finfluencers and pretty much anyone with a social media account has had something to say about the global financial system and the events of the last few weeks – but as far as we know, our quizmaster is the only one that SANG about it – but now he may be “WANTED,…

I was reflecting on the idea of embedded finance and invisible banking yesterday. It’s a great idea. We can use tech to make the world a place where you can pay for anything, anywhere at anytime. Sounds good, but is it? Some people – many who are not in our cocooned world of salaries and…

This week, Bill Gates has written a long essay on the impact AI (Artificial Intelligence) will have on the world. Paraphrasing his essay, these are the highlights for me: I was so excited about their work [OpenAI/ChatGPT] that I gave them a challenge: train an artificial intelligence to pass an Advanced Placement biology exam. Make…