This week’s TIME Magazine has a spread all about how mobile technologies are changing our world. There are stories of how it’s changing elections, charity, privacy and more, as well as getting rid of our wallets of course. The wallet piece is pretty weak to be honest, with the story of one of their journo’s spending a…
Standard Chartered paid off the new Sheriff of New York City, Benjamin Lawsky, to the tune of $340 million to get rid of the pest. As Investec's commentator Ian Gordon said yesterday, they “acted with pragmatism and integrity in the face of extreme provocation”. What really gets me here is the whole USA versus the rest…
More conversations about mobile payments with a wave of news this week: Google, Carriers, Credit Cards Unite on Mobile Payments Committee How Cheap NFC Changes the Mobile Payment Race What Square’s Starbucks Deal Means For Mobile Payments And An Apple iWallet My Mobile Payments floats operations in Britain Deutsche Telekom AG : Next step in…
There’s a buzz that’s started about Facebook banking asCommonwealth Bank of Australia and ICICI Bank get into Facebook banking apps, with Citibank fast to follow. What’s going on? Originally, we all though Facebook would take over bank functions through stealth creep via Facebook credits. Facebook credits are in fact worth around $1.5 billon a year…
As per our regular research surveys, the Financial Services Club is repeating the survey started in 2011 reviewing the changing face of payments infrastructures. We would be delighted if you would join this year’s survey: click here to take part. By participating, you are guaranteed to receive a copy of the results when they are…
We had a great discussion at the Financial Services Club Central & Eastern Europe (FSClub CEE) this week. Now in its fourth year of operation, the Club meets regularly at the residence of the British Ambassador in Vienna, Austria (see postnote if you want a laugh). The theme of the meeting was: “the future of…
More interesting dialogue about banking yesterday, and this time about financial inclusion. The fact that mobile phone ubiquity is creating a wirelessly connected planet, is a key part of changing our world for more inclusion. First, six billion people now have 1:1, P2P connections. You only need to look at mobile densities by continent to realise…
In case you didn’t see it, Wired magazine ran an article about Jack Dorsey and Square this month. Throughout the article, they compare Jack Dorsey to Steve Jobs and Square with Apple. In a long opening – the first page is just about pouring tea! – they finally get to the crunch so here’s my shorter,…
I had an interesting dialogue over lunch yesterday. One of my colleagues had just got his iZettle dongle. iZettle is a Square for Europe, offering Chip & Signature payments on smartphones (Square reads the mag stripe). It was originally going to be Chip & PIN, but the PIN terminal detail is too costly to rollout…
I’m desperate to be positive about Europe, the European Union, the Eurozone and the European Community. I’ve been an advocate of Europe to a certain degree, as it’s been my main focal point for over a decade in finance: building the Eurozone, the Single Euro Payments Area, the implementation of MiFID and EMIR, the whole…
