Last night’s debate, “This house believes our current authentication and identification methods are good enough”, was a healthy one and focused primarily upon card authentication in retail transactions. We started with the case for. The motion was proposed by one of the major card processing firms, who said that the card firms are trying to…
Today is a day that’s all about authentication, identification and verification. First, I have been asked to make a speech at a payments conference all about how to minimise risk; and, second, we have a meeting of the Financial Services Club this evening, in the form of an Oxford Society style Debate with the motion:…
Front Page of Business Week today: Banks versus Consumers – who wins? The focus is upon credit cards and debt collections and, with American credit-card debt hitting a record high of $957 billion in Q1 2008, up 8% from the previous year, according to Federal Reserve data, this is a growing market. One of the…
As you walk the streets of Rome, you find modern and ancient intertwined. The streets are full of gorgeous clothes from designers ranging from Salvatore Ferragano to Versace, Louis Vuitton to Gucci, Prada to Armani. All the names are here in beautifully presented shops that ooze money. These shops are squeezed into streets laid with…
As you walk the streets of Rome, you find modern and ancient intertwined. The streets are full of gorgeous clothes from designers ranging from Salvatore Ferragano to Versace, Louis Vuitton to Gucci, Prada to Armani. All the names are here in beautifully presented shops that ooze money. These shops are squeezed into streets laid with…
The Faster Payments project goes live today after over three years in the planning, $300 million investment in new systems and some delay – it was meant to go live in November but required such significant systems redevelopment that it took six months longer. It should be good for all, as it means D+0 is…
The European Commission is running a conference this week about financial inclusion and the unbanked. According to the Commission, almost half of all of the citizens of the EU10 – Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and other recent joiners, but not Bulgaria and Romania – have no bank account. According to their research, 47% of…
The SWIFT Annual Report came out last Friday (download it here, 3.4 Megabytes) and makes for some interesting reading, especially as I like numbers. Yes, it does include lots of numbers: there are 8,332 institutions connected to SWIFT (note: institutions, not banks) across 208 countries and territories; over 3.5 billion FIN messages exchanged last year…
The SWIFT Annual Report came out last Friday (download it here, 3.4 Megabytes) and makes for some interesting reading, especially as I like numbers. Yes, it does include lots of numbers: there are 8,332 institutions connected to SWIFT (note: institutions, not banks) across 208 countries and territories; over 3.5 billion FIN messages exchanged last year…
