Ruby reflections, 40 years of technology change at work

silver and gold coins

At this time of year my colleague, Dave Birch looks forward, his annual “Live Five” started as a bit of fun, but over the years has become a thought provoking look at what might impact our industry in the coming year, if you haven’t read it yet, please follow this link.

As we come to the holiday season, we know that we will be bombarded with reviews of 2020 on television, in our newspapers and online. A conversation with some colleagues about how long they had worked in the payments industry, prompted my own review when I realised that on the 8th December, I clocked up 40 years in the industry, how technology has changed our lives in that time.

Malware Wolves in Developer Sheep’s Clothing

internet screen security protection

When consumers install software on their devices, they often perform some sort of risk evaluation, even if they don’t consciously realise it.  They might consider who provides the software, whether it is from an app-store, what social media says, and whether they have seen any reviews.  But what if once a piece of software had been installed, the goalposts moved, and something that was a genuine software tool at the time of installation turned into a piece of malware overnight.

This is what happened to approximately 300,000 active users of Chrome ad blocking extension Nano Adblocker.  You see, at the beginning of October, the developer of Nano Adblocker sold it to another developer who promptly deployed malware into it that issued likes to hundreds of Instagram posts without user interaction.  There is some suspicion that it may have also been uploading session cookies.

The Disintermediation of Business Banking

architectural design architecture banks barclays

I recently had the pleasure of “attending” the LendIt Fintech – Europe 2020 virtual event.  Now, much of the content covered banking services for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), an area that personally I’m not particularly familiar with, but one that is gaining more focus in the news of late.  One thing that struck me was the potential disruption of traditional business banking brought about by open banking.


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