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Is public opinion on digital cash really worth listening to?
Asking the public for their opinions about crypto and digital cash is like asking people in the days of bulletin boards what they want from social media. Read more…
Articles by David Birch
Features
Old-fashioned fraud was simple, today’s a very different story
Fraud is getting out of control and we need population-scale digital identity infrastructure to have even a chance of tackling it. Read more…
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What do fintech, productivity and air-con have in common?
Lack of productivity growth is because fintech is being used to support existing products, processes, regulation and institutional structures Read more…
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There is a link between AI and the blockchain – I think
I think I can see that if there is an interesting connection between AI and blockchain then it’s not about using the blockchain as a glorified Excel spreadsheet. Read more…
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Going cashless doesn’t mean drifting into cashlessness
The shift to cashless society must be planned to help low-income and elderly groups so that they share in the benefits of cashlessness. Read more…
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Here’s how to avoid email phishing scams: stop using email
One result of getting your online credentials stolen may be fraudulent phishing emails pretending to be from a company you do business with. There are two ways said business can mitigate that: encrypt all their Read more…
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Why (and how) the banks of the future must ‘Amazonize’ themselves
Open banking will require banks to ‘Amazonize’ themselves, where products are created as API services and distributed throughout the consumption of API services. Here’s how they could go about doing that. In his new book Read more…
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China finally adopts PSD2-style security for digital payments
QR codes are everywhere because anyone can read them, anyone can use them, and anyone can write them. This is in part because there is no security infrastructure. The result in China, where there was Read more…
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2018 Preview: Open banking and other FinTech trends to watch
Consult Hyperion picks its five major FinTech trends for 2018. Included: open banking, conversational transactions, the Internet of Cars, and (of course) AI and ICOs It’s that time of year again. I’ve had a chat Read more…
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China loves digital currency but can it go truly cashless?
China’s central bank wants to ditch paper money eventually. The big challenge is: who gets to create digital currency as legal tender? The Chinese were first with the great transition from commodity money to paper Read more…
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Worldpay’s payments R&D should make banks green with envy
One of my very favorite companies has always been Worldpay. They have a very special place in my heart because many years ago, when they were first starting out, I was sent up to Cambridge Read more…
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Thanks to Apple, NFC tags are finally a viable alternative to QR codes
A decade ago I remember writing that one of the problems with QR codes is that there is no security. Some years later I wrote an article pointing out that NFC ought to be safer than QR Read more…
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To tap or not to tap: that is the mobile payments question
There’s a lot of consumer frustration over mobile contactless payments, but that may not matter if apps, not contactless, are the future of mobile payments How are mobile payments getting on in the UK? According Read more…
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The ultimate role of Bitcoin for banks is up for debate
The future of cryptocurrency for banks could be as a settlement money that connects other different monies. The big question is whether this is this a role for Bitcoin specifically? My old friend Alistair Milne recently published Read more…
Features
How blockchain could fix the supply chain fraud problem
Blockchain is set to disrupt supply chains, but could it prevent fraud problems like the Salad Oil Swindle of 1963? Actually, yes it could I’m not sure if you’re supposed to have a favorite supply Read more…
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The mystery of the non-existent Estonian digital identity blockchain: solved!
Estonia. Land of saunas, shepherds and song festivals. I keep hearing about Estonia all of a sudden, and not for any of these reasons but because of the blockchain. At meetings and conferences, I keep Read more…
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Finger payments: the new technology that’s been new since 2004
Using your finger (or thumb) as a POS payment mechanism is an idea that’s been circulating for years without much success. That may be about to change. A few people recently forwarded a link from Read more…
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Mobile payments better than cash for people on the margins of society
Down at the PayExpo Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in Dubai this year, I saw an excellent presentation from Uber India. One of the most interesting things I learned was that because most Indian Read more…
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India’s demonetization a fascinating case study of cash-reform shock therapy
I expect that most of you will by now have read a fair bit about the (to my mind) fabulous living monetary experiment that is India. Obviously, I feel sorry for people who have been Read more…
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Mobile payments are the future of fish purchases in India
We all still processing the data coming in from India’s radical experiment with cash, and I still think that is way too soon to pass any judgement at all on whether the experiment has been Read more…
