Category: Uncategorized

[Dave Birch]  The potential growth of the RFID market is "huge".  It’s not just me who says this, but the "Information Society and Media" Commissioner, Viviane Reding told reporters at CeBIT.  She estimated that the European RFID market will grow from €500 million ($660 million) in 2006 to €7 billion by 2016. "We’re strong in wireless, mobility and chip manufacturing, and we must develop this for RFID," she said. But the commissioner also warned that industry must pay greater attention to security and privacy issues. "We must make industry aware that the Internet of things must be an Internet for people".  That’s a phrase I rather like, and it echoes some of our comments on this.  She also announced the creation of an "RFID stakeholder group," including representatives from industry and consumer groups. The group will provide advice to the Commission, which plans by the middle of this year to propose amendments to the e-Piracy Directive taking account of RFID applications. Also, later in the year, the Commission intends to publish recommendations for member states on how to handle data security and privacy issues affected by the use of RFID. .

Technorati Tags: internet, rfid

Continue reading “I’d like my stuff to chat more”

[Dave Birch] Islamic finance seems to be growth area generally, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Islamic payments growing similarly, even if I’m not entirely sure what that would mean.  But with the first Islamic chip & PIN card now in the market, issued by the Kuwait Finance House in Bahrain, it might a good time for digital money thinkers to look at the area in more detail.

Technorati Tags: credit cards, currencies, EMV

Continue reading “Islamic e-payments”

[Dave Birch] I wonder if the focus on virtual currencies isn’t getting just a tad hysterical?  The news that the Chinese government has decided to restrict the convertability of virtual currencies into Yuan because it is worried that virtual currencies from online games could undermine the country’s financial system makes you think.  The government there says that the redemption of virtual currencies in value exceeding their original purchasing prices will be banned (which I think is the same as the European Directive on Electronic Money Issuing, isn’t it?) to prevent attempts to make a profit.  What’s even more interesting it that the government also says that virtual currencies cannot be used to buy real goods but only virtual products and services provided by the operators who issue the currencies.  As I’ve said before, this whole real/virtual thing is very fuzzy.

Technorati Tags: currencies, regulation, virtual worlds

Continue reading “Chinese walls”

[Dave Birch] Under a deal announced at the beginning of March, RFID (radio frequency identification) tag specialists Checkpoint Systems will provide Europe’s second largest shoe retailer Reno with tags and tagging systems for 700 stores in 15 countries.  By having the tags integrated into its shoes, Reno aims to curb theft for both boxed products and those on display, as well as shoes customers try on in the stores.  Reno has been using RFID technology to track product shipments from its factories to its stores for several years but has not yet used the technology to track individual products inside each store.  Even setting these more paranoid aspects to one side, wouldn’t it be useful for retailers to know which stores I’d been in and where I went in those stores?

Technorati Tags: contactless, privacy, retail

Continue reading “These boots were made for talking”

[Dave Birch] The growth in contactless payment technologies continues.  A recent landmark was Sony’s 200 millionth Felica chip shipped.  Note that it took Sony a decade to ship the first 100 million but only 18 months to ship the second 100 million.  By the end of 2006, U.S. banks had issued 17-19 million contactless credit and debit cards, according to industry estimates. JupiterResearch estimate that those numbers will increase to 37 million by the end of 2007 and 188 million by 2010.  In the U.K. banks start issuing contactless cards in September.

Technorati Tags: ATM, contactless, credit cards, debit cards

Continue reading “Contactless growth”

[Dave Birch] I’ll be running a workshop at the NFC Technology & Applications Forum in Barcelona on June 4th.  I’ll be sharing some of the lessons we’ve been learning from advising banks, operators and others on NFC strategies together with the results of some of our work as part of the StoLPan consortium developing business models for the NFC value chain.

Technorati Tags: payments

Continue reading “NFC in Barcelona”

[Dave Birch] Yes, yes, there is.  As you know, the innovation never ceases over here.  The Digital Identity blog is now available as a "blidget".  That’s a "blog widget" to you old folks.  What this means is that you are welcome to add the Digital Identity blog’s recent posts to your own web pages and blogs by simply copying and pasting a simple bit of html.

Technorati Tags: identity, social networking

Continue reading “No, not more innovation”

[Dave Birch] A perfect target group for digital identity are corporate treasurers.  They have to send important messages where authentication and encryption are required and they are busy people who don’t want to mess around with complicated solutions.  What’s more, since each of them may be dealing with a number of different banks and each bank on they use may require different levels of integration and security, they have desks cluttered with smart cards, USB tokens and key fobs for different log-ins and transaction approvals.  SWIFT and our good friends at Identrust have been running a pilot to change all of this, showcasing a new "double" digital signature information delivery model in which a corporate payment order file, layered with SWIFT’s PKI security protocol, as well as an IdenTrust digital certificate identifying a specific corporate employee (required for Sarbannes-Oxley and such like), is delivered and then verified by two separate institutions.  And it works.

Technorati Tags: identity

Continue reading “Working digital identities in the corporate space”

[Dave Birch] I’m looking again at the economics of virtual worlds and the Korean situation is once again much in my mind.  An analysis of their virtual economy may contain some useful pointers.  But what are they?  Let’s focus on the cross-border money transfers (cross-border in the sense of "real" world to "virtual" world).  In 2006, these totalled US$830 Million. Around 80 percent of these transactions were mediated and 20 percent direct (player to- player).  Looking at the kinds of games involved and the kinds of transactions…

 

Game Type	Game Items	Game Currency	Game Accounts
MMORG	18.5%	78.9%	2.6%
Action games	57.3%	41.5%	1.2%
Puzzle/Poker	33.6%	61.4%	0%

Unsurprisingly, money dominates.  And, as a deeper look at some related figures shows, the F/X is to support trade, not speculation.

Technorati Tags: currencies, games, internet, MMORPGS, payments, virtual worlds

Continue reading “Economic report”

[Dave Birch] There’s something of cash replacement meme running around at the moment.  I was interviewed by a major UK-based broadcasting corporation on the subject again.  Why has it become topical again?  I’m sure it’s something to do with the imminent arrival of contactless.

Technorati Tags: payments

Continue reading “I get the concept”