March 2007 - Page 2 of 4 - Tomorrow's Transactions

Islamic e-payments

Thursday, 22 March 2007 by Dave Birch Leave a Comment

[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

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These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.

Chinese walls

Wednesday, 21 March 2007 by Dave Birch Leave a Comment

[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

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Agenda for the 10th annual Digital Money Forum

Tuesday, 20 March 2007 by Dave Birch Leave a Comment

[Dave Birch] The final agenda for the 10th annual Digital Money Forum is on the web and can be downloaded from the Forum web site. There are still a few places left, so pop over and book your place ASAP.

Technorati Tags: forum, payments

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Comforting phone call

Friday, 16 March 2007 by Dave Birch 1 Comment

[Dave Birch] There are some strange things going on in the world of chip and PIN. First of all, the Scottish Grocers’ Federation (SGF) Retail Crime Survey for 2006 shows that card fraud in Scotland’s convenience stores has gone up by 54% since the introduction of chip and PIN, an increase for which they can provide no explanation, which is even more odd considering that card fraud is continuing to fall at other kinds of retailers. I’m really, really curious to know if anyone has any theories. Second of all, the issuer of one of my UK credit cards called…

Technorati Tags: credit cards, EMV, fraud, security

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Not-very-public key infrastructure

Thursday, 15 March 2007 by Dave Birch Leave a Comment

[Dave Birch] One of the most visible digital identity documents, the passport, has been much in the news recently. Unfortunately, most of the coverage has been about the limitations of Basic Access Control (BAC). Not that electronic passport control is operational yet because of the problems getting readers installed and configured, which in turn means getting the public key directory working. This directory is being set up by Netrust, a Singaporean company that last year was selected by ICAO. Germany, citing security worries, says it is not taking part in the directory, even though the USA and UK are (currently). Readers won’t have the German keys in them (unless they get them directly from the Germans), so they won’t be able to validate the digital signatures on German e-passports. As we’ve discussed before here, there some genuine problems here that need to be fixed for the e-passport to be effective.

Technorati Tags: identity, passport, security

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Competition for cash

Thursday, 15 March 2007 by Dave Birch 4 Comments

[Dave Birch] Some unrepentant e-cash fanboy was quoted saying that "society will eventually end its love affair with cash and embrace technology – as in Japan where mobile phones, not bank cards, are replacing coins and notes". It this a reasonable comment or techno-blinkered boosterism? We need, as Aneace says, to find some figures on actual transactions performed with mobile phones. Let’s look at Japan.

Technorati Tags: contactless, e-purse, mobile, retail

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If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the chatroom

Tuesday, 13 March 2007 by Dave Birch 1 Comment

[Dave Birch] I’m always looking out for real-world problems that appear serious but where intelligent analysis shows that an effective digital identity infrastructure can support good solutions. As such, I often use the "chatroom paradox" as a simple example of how the technology to deliver pseudonymity can balance the needs to stakeholders even in a contentious environment. But I’m a technologist, so I tend to dwell on how online identities might be protected rather than why they might be protected. A recent Israeli court ruling has made me think about this again.

Technorati Tags: identity

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Cheap as chips

Tuesday, 13 March 2007 by Dave Birch 1 Comment

[Dave Birch] I am frequently, and with good reason, accused of being over-optimistic about the ability of digital money to replace to cash. But now Peter Ayliffe, the head of Visa Europe, has said that within five years credit and debit cards should be cheaper and more convenient than cash and that, as I have long anticipated, retailers could start surcharging customers if they choose to buy products with cash, because of the greater cost of processing these payments. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) dismissed his view and said that Merchant Service Charges (MSCs) are still too high because of the interchange component. One member of the consurtium said that the estimated interchange was 4p per transaction. The retailers object to the interchange because they say that it is used to fund stuff like cashback and frequent flyer miles rather than payment processing. "There is a duopoly between Mastercard and Visa in the UK. Their setting of fees is anti-competitive" said Nick Mourant, treasurer at Tesco, which currently handles about one-eighth of all retail payments by volume in the UK and has 31% of all UK supermarket spending. The payments industry might reasonably point out, however, the 97% of all cash withdrawals at ATMs in the UK are free: so someone is paying for the machines, networks, security guards, armoured trucks and everything else that goes with ATMs and it’s not the people using cards. If it’s not going to be customers, then why shouldn’t it be retailers?

Technorati Tags: contactless, payments, retail

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These boots were made for talking

Monday, 12 March 2007 by Dave Birch 1 Comment

[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

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