Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Payments

PayPal not so pally

I've written a fair bit of positive stuff about PayPal over the last few years, and was intriguted by two headlines today. One, "PayPal reported me to the FBI". Two, "PayPal up charges to customers … and don't tell them". The first is blogger Ghetto Webmaster, who posted an image of PayPal's logo to illustrate…

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PayPal not so pally

I've written a fair bit of positive stuff about PayPal over the last few years, and was intriguted by two headlines today. One, "PayPal reported me to the FBI". Two, "PayPal up charges to customers … and don't tell them". The first is blogger Ghetto Webmaster, who posted an image of PayPal's logo to illustrate…

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Visualising economics

There are more and more sites that are using visual tools to illustrate banks, the credit crisis and other trends. Mint is particularly good at doing this, and there is also a nice little video about the credit crisis that makes it simple to understand.  And then today, I stumbled across Visual Economics, a great…

US consumer spending

I’ve lost control (again)

It’s summer and we should feel relaxed. Instead I’m more wound up than ever. Why? Because my life is no longer mine to control. It all began on Saturday. I went to the cashpoint and the machine wouldn’t give me any cash. Even when I said ‘please’, it wouldn’t give me any cash. So I…

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I’ve lost control (again)

It’s summer and we should feel relaxed. Instead I’m more wound up than ever. Why? Because my life is no longer mine to control. It all began on Saturday. I went to the cashpoint and the machine wouldn’t give me any cash. Even when I said ‘please’, it wouldn’t give me any cash. So I…

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Clean up Oracle and save $1,000 in bank fees every day

Interesting debate on LinkedIn's Payment Systems Network, where someone asked a question about what methods to use to control data entry errors in remittance processing and whether there are any strategies to follow. Martin Jermann, a consultant with the United Nations, responds: I work for the United Nations and we make payments all over the…

Cisco

Clean up Oracle and save $1,000 in bank fees every day

Interesting debate on LinkedIn's Payment Systems Network, where someone asked a question about what methods to use to control data entry errors in remittance processing and whether there are any strategies to follow. Martin Jermann, a consultant with the United Nations, responds: I work for the United Nations and we make payments all over the…

Cisco

One week left: have you entered the survey?

It’s July 31st and we are pleased to announce that, during the summer, the Financial Services Club's in-depth analysis and research project about the country-level plans for the transposition of the Payment Services Directive (PSD) on 1st November 2009 and the implementation of SEPA Direct Debits (SDD) on 2nd November has been a success. Over…

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In love with Kiva

For those of you who haven't heard of Kiva, it's a P2P lending community with a difference.  It's the Grameen Bank of the Zopa world.  In other words, it facilitates microfinance, using the web as an enabler.  And it's wonderful. Why is it wonderful? OK.  It starts with that fact that it connects people with…

Kiva

Faster payment?

The BBC has just written an interesting piece about the state of the UK's Faster Payments Service (FPS).  FPS is meant to allow transfers of up to £10,000 to take place within 2 hours for telephone, internet and regular payments via standing order.  In fact, most banks will not let you get even near those…