A final note on remittances and I've already been taken to task by one reader, who points out that a 'migrant worker' in one country is another country's customer overseas. This is a key point for some banks, as they enable their customers to migrate and have full financial services whilst working overseas. That's an…
Great conversations continue in the remittances space, or money transfer space if you prefer, with a chat with the global transaction services folks from a major bank. This bank has a dilemma: are they in the remittances space or are they not? They really want to be in this space but are worried about risk…
We had a really interesting free-ranging conversation about remittances and new services for remittances yesterday. Oh yes, I should say that I’m at a remittances conference so that’s the reason why. The discussion was about the NEXT BIG THING in money transfer … or rather whether and if there is a NEXT BIG THING in…
I’m intrigued by the number of discussions there are around identity. There have been several here recently, for example: Adventures in identity: are you paranoid or schizophrenic? If identities are unique, why do I have so many? Why identity management is so complicated And there are a number of blogs dedicated to identity management issues,…
There’s the classic old joke about the European dream being a place where the police are English, the chefs are Italian, the car mechanics are German, the lovers are French and the bankers are all Swiss. The nightmare is that it is a place where the police are German, the chefs are English, the car…
Inspired by three events this week, I focused on apps for my panel discussion today … and got shot down in flames for talking bollards. Harrumph. Here are the events, the logic, the proposal and why it got shot down. First, the events. Event number one: my first iPhone My Blackberry has just been switched…
In a dialogue the other day about payments infrastructures, and building on my comments that all payments innovations are rubbish because they sit on creaking and out-of-date legacy technologies, a colleague stated that it was over-egging the case to say that all the old infrastructures needed to be destroyed and rebuilt. They likened it more…
With the general frustration folks appear to have with bank fees – not sure why as banking has to cost something, doesn't it? – I just got wind of the new Currency Exchange for P2P transactions. Here's how it works: Or, if you prefer, in text form: "CurrencyFair is the people's exchange." For example, "Jim…
Here's my latest retail payments focused presentation. It's premise is that there's loads of innovation out there, with micropayments and iPhone apps being hotbeds of innovation for developed economies whilst microfinance and 2G GSM messaging being creative fields for developing economies. However, all of these innovations are just froth on the cake of the payments…
If you’re wondering what’s happening with SEPA (the Single Euro Payments Area) then this interview with Gilbert Lichter, Secretary General of the Euro Banking Association (EBA) and CEO of EBA Clearing, provides a good overview of the latest and greatest: Gilbert Lichter from Chris Skinner on Vimeo. The interview took place after our recent FSClub…
