The real battle between MCX and Apple, between banks and Google, between retailers and telcos is not about your handset, your SIM (soft or otherwise) or your payments. It’s about your identity.
The phoney war is over, part 1
Category: People
Bill Gates was spot on at SIBOS – there’s an identity problem
Last week I was very interested to see that Bill Gates highlighted identity as a key problem at SIBOS. This was because I’d already noticed that there was a problem with one of the identities there: mine.
Authentication expectations are changing rapidly
Apple TouchID has completely changed my expectations of how security should work on my mobile phone and I don’t doubt it will change other people’s as well. And very quickly.
What does the Talmud tell us about ApplePay?
The Talmud is clear on the topic of cardholder verification: ApplePay has got it right and chip and PIN, chip and signature and no-signature swipe are going to vanish. Well, that’s my interpretation.
Yes we KANZ
The discussions around digital identity and digital money down at the KANZ Summit in Auckland left me convinced that they remain mobile-centric for the foreseeable future. They also left me convinced that this whole Internet of Things thing hasn’t really been thought through.
We’ll be giving Barclays the finger next year
Biometric authentication against a device with tamper-resistant hardware is a good general-purpose solution for mass-market online login. For the foreseeable future, that device will be the mobile phone and that biometrics will be the fingerprint, but Barclays use of finger vein scanning is still interesting.
What about a financial services passport?
The problems around KYC for new financial services, especially for new entrants, might be mitigated by the introduction of a financier services passport based on modern technology and not stupid bits of paper.
Payment system regulation as barrier to payment system innovation
If we want more innovation, we need more competition, not more regulation.
Identity, so I hear, is the new money
The CSFI roundtable on my book “identity is the new money” left me utterly depressed. Every single book sold was sold for cash. I will never recover from the embarrassment and public humiliation. Still, at least they sold some.
Identity might work better bottom up
One way to help people obtain financial capital is by helping them to build up social capital.
