November, 2022

• 1 November

  Payments 3.0: Regulators: Square Off Or Partner Up?

  

  Should an industry square off against its regulators or partner up with them? The answer shapes consumers’ access to financial products, and thus their financial lives. An acrimonious relationship stifles innovation, leaving consumers with fewer options to meet their financial needs. Unfortunately, many signs point to a lot of future …
• 1 November

  Security Notes: Lifeboats on the Titanic

  

  Call me a sore loser, if you will, having just lost the prestigious G20 BIS 2022 CBDC contest to a payment company from the Philippines, Dragonpay. I arm myself with excuses. Perhaps. Dragon is a fine, accomplished outfit. The thoughtful judges saw more merit there than they identified in BitMint. …

October, 2022

• 1 October

  Security Notes: The Revolution in Digital Money Tech

  

  Central banks do something no one else can: they arbitrarily computer-click digital statements, and get people to regard them as tradeable instruments of value. They do so on the basis of a vague claim that this fiat currency reflects the wealth of the nation. It is not entirely a baseless …
• 1 October

  Payments 3.0: How Tech Can Get You Crosswise With the CFPB

  

  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau appears to consider regulating technology to be critical to its mission of protecting consumers. Clearly, the growth of algorithms, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in financial services seems to be leading the Bureau to target problems caused by these tools. Technophiles often present automated decision-making …
• 1 October

  Behind the Digital Dollar Project’s ‘Sandbox’

  

  While the Federal Reserve mulls the concept of a national digital dollar, private-sector actors are working toward the same end. The Digital Dollar Project at the end of August launched what it calls a Technical Sandbox Program in an effort, it said, to help advance understanding of the technical requirements …

September, 2022

• 1 September

  Security Notes: Auto-Referential Money: Coming Attractions

  

  Like it or not, Ponzi scheme or otherwise, Bitcoin shook the financial world, and the waves keep rippling forth. The essential revolution here is the abstract notion of “self-referential money.” Before Bitcoin, money was an entity that had an existence regardless of its role in monetary exchange, and indeed this …
• 1 September

  Global Payments Hangs a $4 Billion Price Tag on EVO

  

  The consolidation of the payment-processing business continues apace, driven by economies of scale and the challenges of keeping up with emerging technology. In the latest deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, Global Payments Inc. announced last month it will acquire EVO Payments Inc. …
• 1 September

  Payments 3.0: Fintech Turbulence Shows How Details Matter

  

  Last year, Chime got in trouble with the regulators for marketing itself as a bank. At the time, industry observers responded with a lot of snark about how it didn’t matter to the end users whether or not Chime actually held a charter, so the regulators were being ridiculous. This …

July, 2022

• 1 July

  Payments 3.0: CFPB To Fintechs: No Special Favors

  

  A series of recent actions by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau gives the fintech industry some clues for navigating the new regulatory environment. The upshot is that the Bureau has been putting the pieces in place for a new approach to regulating any company that provides a financial product to …
• 1 July

  Security Notes: CBDCs: Hit the Pause Key

  

  Central banks around the world are gripped by an uncharacteristic frenzy. Almost every central bank is at least setting up “commissions” to look into the alluring—yet jarring—prospect of redefining their national currencies. A few countries simply embraced Bitcoin, straight. The second-biggest economy in the world, China, is actively experimenting with …