Central banks and criminals are colluding to grow the shadow economy, which seems mad to me, because the seigniorage income from the circulating medium of exchange is a fraction of the tax gap it stimulates. Surely we should have a plan to do something about this?
I had assumed that the world had got bored with talking about mobile wallets by now, but that certainly wasn’t the case in London last week, where I had the great fun of chairing a couple of discussion panels on the topic and found new perspectives on the likely marketplace trajectory.
Cash is becoming a payment mechanism for poor people (and poor countries), but because of its high costs it’s very bad for both of them. Oh, and it’s really annoying for women, even if they are not in poor countries.
Why is there only one Bank of England? Only one Pound Sterling and one interest rate throughout the UK? The Head of the Competition and Markets Authority says that competition in currency is “welcome”. So what is he going to do about it?
I’m having fun at Finovate Fall 2014. But I want to tell everyone else here a secret. If you want to see the future of #fintech, pay attention to Dr. Who. He’s already shown you.
I was in a meeting earlier in the week where someone said that even with ApplePay, the US is far behind Japan in mobile payments, so I thought I’d do a quick update on Japan which, as for the US, we label a “special case” in our analysis of the market: we can learn from it, but it doesn’t tell us anything about how other markets might develop. As it happens, the Japanese market has just taken an odd turn.
I love NFC, but I was sceptical that Apple would put it in the iPhone 6 because of one particular problem. Maybe Apple have solved it.
Even if Apple does put NFC in the iPhone 6, I do not see why they will use it to implement the existing industry model for contactless mobile payments.
I’ve got Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD). I get this every season when I try to buy something using my mobile phone.
I think the idea that Bitcoin will replace payments cards in retail transactions because it is cheaper or more convenient is unrealistic.
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