As many readers know, I've disliked Chip & PIN pretty much since it was launched, as there are better solutions out there. Here's my comment from 2006: Chris Skinner, CEO of financial services think tank Balatro told silicon.com: "I'm an anti-chip and PIN person. Sorry Apacs – I like them very much but it's not…
We had a great debate at the FSClub the other day, with the provocative title: “this house believes that SEPA (the Single Euro Payments Area) does matter”. The evening was chaired by the more than capable Bob Lyddon, who coordinates the IBOS Association secretariat, and four panel members who ‘played’ parts in being proposes and…
After the news of a banker’s offspring trying to blow up a flight on Christmas Eve by hiding explosive materials in his underpants, we wonder how such individuals get away with such acts. Can’t we monitor them better? Is there no way to identify the honest person from the dishonest from the outright terrorist? This…
I mentioned a dinner which I chaired about remittances the other day, and the firm that organised the dinner sent me a white paper as a follow-up. As a taster, read the previous blog entry or this paragraph gives a good indication of the content: "Remittances are no longer solely about supporting people in the…
Interesting article on the guide to all things Europe today, Euractiv, about the Payment Services Directive. The Directive “has been transposed in all but 11 of the 31 EU/EEA countries”. Hmmm … that would be Cyprus, Estonia, Italy and Latvia (Jan); Norway (Feb); Belgium, Greece, Spain, Finland, Malta and Poland (Mar); whilst Sweden is last…
Everyone's getting real excited about Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, and his new payments application for the iPhone called Square. If you haven't seen it, here it is: In a lengthy interview with Pymnts.com, Dorsey says: "We can provide a lot of things that I think have been missing in payments – specifically like…
Following the decision in the UK to phase out the paper cheque by 2018, here's a graph of travellers cheques usage as published by the Federal Reserve via Paul Kedrowsky (double click to enlarge): I wonder when these will be outlawed? The Financial Services Club is sponsored by: For details of sponsorship email us.
We had a fascinating and packed meeting at the Financial Services Club this week with David Doyle, EU Policy Advisor, discussing the challenges of the new Barosso European Parliament and their legislative drive in financial services. David is a regular visitor to the Financial Services Club, and runs our European Financial Regulatory Advisory Group. In…
As if to support my contention that a NEW bank should focus upon offering the world's best remote channel banking, the Payments Council released the following press release today: "It is just 12 years since internet banking began, but its popularity has grown so much that, in the first half of 2009, 22 million adults…
I chaired a dinner last night on remittances and it was pretty interesting. The term ‘remittances’ is generally used to refer to foreign workers sending money home and represents major GDP for many countries. For example, Tonga’s remittances represent 40% of the country’s GDP, Samoa’s is 25%, Jamaica’s is over 20% and the Philippines 10%….
