[Dave Birch] This month’s Financial World magazine (not available online) has an article by David Lascelles of the CSFI on their annual “Banking Banana Skins” report. They survey 500 “financial practitioners and analysts” around the world to find out what they think are the biggest risks to the banking industry over the coming year. It’s a good way of working out where the attention of the people who runs banks is focused (hint: not here).

Technorati Tags: banking, payments

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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.

[Dave Birch] A survey from the not-entirely-disinterested American Bankers Association says that US consumers trust banks far more than anyone else (including the government) to look after their identity.  It’s certainly been discussed enough — the idea that banks might become identity brokers of some description — and it has always seemed to me that it’s not a crazy idea.  Further, some leading banks actually set up a consortium to do just this a few years ago.  That consortium, Identrus, has become IdenTrust.  If trust is the one intangible commodity banks possess that rises above anything non-bank rivals might have, and with digital certificates and digital signatures once again been seen as the general solution to the identity problem, then perhaps its day has come.

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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.

[Dave Birch] Chat rooms are a great place to start thinking about digital identity. Especially where children are concerned. I started thinking about this again while I was dipping into the privacy vs. anonymity debate that is swirling around our corner of the Internet yet again. If we (ie, the digital identity illuminati) can solve the chat room problem, then we’ll really have achieved something.

Chat rooms were in the news recently because UK users of Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger can now click a new button in the chat application to contact police with reports of suspicious behavior and instances of inappropriate sexual conduct online (eg, any mention of having viewed Celebrity Love Island). But how do you know who was being "inappropriate"?

Technorati Tags: internet, privacy

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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.

[Dave Birch] Barclays Bank is going to issue hand-held chip card readers to all of its 1.6 million active online banking customers to tighten security and combat identity theft.  The calculator-sized two-factor authentication devices will be distributed throughout 2007.  They will be based on reader specifications developed by the banking industry body APACS.  As a Barclays customer for nearly three decades, I’m looking forward to getting mine.

Technorati Tags: authentication, banking, internet

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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.

[Dave Birch] The good people of Central Banking Publications have just launched a new quarterly journal called SPEED about “Moving money and securities worldwide”. I thought it must have been a misprint, but apparently it’s true: this fine publication costs a miniscule £160 per annum in the UK and a miserable $290 per annum outside the UK. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, I write the column on retail e-payments.

Technorati Tags: banking, payments, settlement

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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.

[Dave Birch] According to a middle eastern news service, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) announced that Saudis had withdrawn SR 68 billion worth of cash through the available ATM networks in the Kingdom through the first half of 2006. According to Al-Yaum newspaper, citing a SAMA report, Saudis had also executed 4,320,474,149 transactions through the available ATM’s networks in the Kingdom through the first half of 2006. The report added that the Saudi banks had issued 359,117,900 ATM cards through the first half of 2006. The total number of the ATM machines in the Kingdom amounted to 5,377 machines. Man, those must be some ATMs: one transaction at every machine every 17 seconds, 24×7.

Technorati Tags: ATM, banking, cash

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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.

[Dave Birch] Hackensack University Medical Center and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey are recruiting volunteers to have an RFID device implanted under the skin. The chips, made by VeriChip Corporation, will contain a 16-digit identifying number that can be used to bring up medical and family contact information stored electronically in a database. The chips will be tested in patients with chronic conditions who are more likely to need care in hospital emergency rooms.

Technorati Tags: contactless, RFID

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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.