Category: Uncategorized

[Dave Birch] Yet mobile money launches.  KushCash is one, another is AT&T.  They are planning a a “single front door” format for full service mobile banking.  Apparently this means that banking will work the same way as e-mail and instant-messaging services, where AT&T provides a user interface that offers access to a number of different Internet service providers.  So instead of a number of applications from different banks having to be tested, configured and so on, there will just be one AT&T banking application and it can connect to multiple banks.  An AT&T person said that although banks might be reluctant to put their brand and services up next to those of competitors, the single interface would help prevent market fragmentation.  I’m still not sure if I would want to use this kind of application, but then I’m probablynot the target market because I’m happy banking on the web.  What’s important is s, as Hannes van Rensburg says, that mobile banking is enabling people who never had access to electronic banking before.  Internet banking enabled people to access their banking electronically only if they had been banked before, whereas mobile banking is leading to a revolution where people are being banked who never had a banking relationship in the past. This is largely because of the utility and functionality that is now being made available to people with cell-phones (which is much more than people with access to the Internet)However, the biggest difference is the access that mobile banking have enabled especially to people that never had access to electronic banking before. Internet banking enabled people to access their banking electronically only if they had been banked before, whereas mobile banking is leading to a revolution where people are being banked who never had a banking relationship in the past.

Technorati Tags: banking, e-purse, mobile

Continue reading “I wonder if mobile phones will really catch on?”

[Dave Birch] Western Union has $4.5 billion in revenue last year.  They have a big share of the remittance market and there are plenty of other people looking at that number with some envy.  One particular group of people looking at that market are mobile operators, who (via the GSM Association, which represents more than 700 mobile phone operators in more than 200 territories and countries) recently got together with MasterCard to pilot a global money transfer service that will use mobile phone technology to reach consumers who have no access to traditional banking services (ie, almost everyone in the entire world).  Their vision is that users will be able to transfer money almost instantaneously between participating banks and various card payment products, such as MasterCard’s pre-pay cards, via a mobile phone.

Technorati Tags: mobile, p2p, remittances

Continue reading “Global money transfer”

[Dave Birch] The pride of association football, Manchester City Football Club, are also the pride of the smart card world.  The first football club in Britain to have an all-smart card (ie, no paper tickets) stadium, they have been blazing a trail in the use of NFC phones for entitlement and access control.  City equipped 30 fans at the beginning of the season with Nokia 3220 NFC phones to store ticket information and open stadium turnstiles when held against a contactless reader.

‘The trial proved the technology works and the feedback from fans of all ages has been positive,’ said Duncan Martin, head of retail at Manchester City (who described the contactless access scheme to the fifth annual Digital Identity Forum) says ‘We must now wait on the development of mobile phones equipped to accept NFC.’  Quite, but it won’t be too long.  More importantly, he goes on to say that ‘we believe that eventually more mobile phones will be used to gain entry to the stadium than smartcards.’  Duncan is a very sensible guy, so if he says that, I take him seriously.  It seems to me that the kind of evolution we are seeing here — from paper, to contactless, to NFC — will be replicated across many sectors, with the obvious implication that anyone designing an identity, entitlement or access card scheme today must be designing it with the roadmap to mobile in mind.

Technorati Tags: contactless, ID cards, mobile, nfc

Continue reading “My identity? Blue till I die”

[Dave Birch] Some people think that, much as every year was the year of the smart card, this is finally the year of biometrics.  "This really is the year of biometrics," Walter Hamilton, chairman of the International Biometric Industry Association.  In banking, it may well be.

Technorati Tags: banking, biometrics, identity, security

Continue reading “Well, is this the year of biometrics?”

[Dave Birch] I loved my Britney Spears card.  Younger readers may not remember the time when Ms. Spears was the biggest pop star in the world and, astonishing as it may seem, her fan club launched a smart card kit.  Fearing that I would end up on some police database, I bullied my sister-in-law into joining the fan club on my behalf and ordering one for me.  That’s how dull my life was: I wasn’t interested in Ms. Spears big hits, I wanted the card reader.  The kits, which had been developed by Internet PLC, a U.K.-based company.  The company developed the SmartFlash content sold the kits via the web and at her concerts.  The Britney smart card provided access to a secure web site with video clips, e-cards to mail to friends and a preview of her upcoming video game. They sold more than 25,000 kits at $29.95 before they were discontinued.  But they worked.

Technorati Tags: e-purse, EMV, internet, interoperability, security

Continue reading “Me and Britney”

[Dave Birch] Our good friends over at e-commerce law & policy, a sister publication to the reasonably-priced yet indispensable e-finance & payments law & policy, are organising a special briefing on virtual worlds at Field Fisher Waterhouse in London on 18th April. I’m sorry I won’t be able to be there because I’m teaching at Visa’s Bank Card Business School: please contact Kay Ma at e-comlaw to book a place.

Technorati Tags: puppy, regulation, virtual worlds

Continue reading “Virtually legal”

[Margrit Kennedy] In Germany and Austria, a new type of voucher is in use since 2003. Instead of aiming at customer loyalty for commercial enterprises, these vouchers aim at creating customer, producer and trade loyalty for a region. The “Regional Currency Complements” for which the term "Regio" is being used by about 50 initiatives, which belong to the Regiogeld Verband (Regional Money Federation) have a number of common features. They include:

• The Regio is not legal tender or an "official" means of payment, which means that its acceptance is entirely voluntary. Therefore, it will only function as long as people consider it to be useful, i.e. as long as it can be spent for regional products that people need.
• Its use is limited by geography, and in each region the currency bears a different name.
• Exchanging Regios for other regional currencies or the national currency usually imposes an exchange fee.
• Regios usually do not earn interest, but carry a circulation incentive–i.e. a fee–if not passed on.

The “Regio” is, so to speak, a quality label, which guarantees a certain quality standard and performance:

• It allows a partial de-coupling of the regional economy from the global economy and acts like a semi-permeable membrane around the region, allowing that percentage of economic exchanges which is regional to be carried out in the region’s own currency.
• It keeps the added value of regionally exchanged goods within the regional economy and thus helps to reduce unemployment in its region.
• Its creation is transparent and, therefore, can be democratically controlled.
• It encourages ecological projects and production and thus promotes the shortest efficient transportation route.
• It enhances regional identity, cooperation and responsibility among participants and creates new relationships between consumers and producers.

The initiators of Regional Currency Complements believe that they can strengthen the region with its specific interests and potentials by its own means of exchange. In contrast to programmes that attempt to create more social justice through the transfer of wealth, currency complements offer a new way to increase social equality. They can be seen as innovative means for supporting individual and group initiatives, strengthening their self-worth and generating added social value through collective action.

The development of regional currency complements aims at enabling the inhabitants of a region to preferentially purchase regional goods and services – and to help small and medium-size enterprises who are responsible for creating most of the jobs and profits resulting from production rather than financial investments. Usually the cost of creating workplaces for regional production is a fraction of the cost of workplaces that serve international markets.

Technorati Tags: community, currencies, loyalty, payments

Continue reading “Local money for local people”

[Dave Birch] Critics of the US ID card initiative have long said that it actually makes individuals less secure by putting all their eggs in one basket and leaving them more vulnerable to data breaches and insider abuse.  The legislation behind it, the Read ID Act, requires the departments of motor vehicles in all 50 states to demand and keep on file sensitive documents such as birth certificates, social security cards, utility bills and the like. People who don’t have an ID card will be barred from boarding airplanes and from entering federal buildings such as courthouses, so it looks as if most Americans will have to get one.

Technorati Tags: ID cards, identity, risk analysis, security

Continue reading “REALly bad idea”

[Dave Birch] Many people subscribe the Digital Identity Forum blog "RSS feed" and read it through a "Feed reader".  If these terms mean nothing to you, you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve set up an e-mail list for you.  Read on for instructions…

Technorati Tags: forum, identity

Continue reading “If you don’t know your RSS from your elbow”

[Dave Birch] I’m thrown into category confusion, because I wanted to mention the use of Octopus (ie, transit) contactless smart cards in Hong Kong.  As we have often discussed, the way in which Octopus has spread from transit to retail payments makes for an interesting case study.  But it is also the case the Octopus cards are being used for physical access control.  Since everyone, essentially, has one there is no point in implementing proprietary access control systems for offices or apartment buildings: you may as well just let people use their Octopus cards.  This always struck me as rather interesting, particularly given evidence from other markets that people might be reluctant to load too many functions onto one card.

Technorati Tags: contactless, identity, mobile, security

Continue reading “Aargh! Is this identity or money?”