Gavin Scruby

CIO at SmartDebit

Message Posts: 2 Comments: 1

Bio Director at SmartDebit, one of the UK's leading Direct Debit bureaux - providing recurring payment services to customers ranging from large charities, blue chip, government and banks down to small clubs and individuals. Career History PhD-qualified, board-level CIO who has brought numerous products to market and built many technical organisations. Worked with start-ups, SMEs and blue chips, leading from initial concept as well as helping deliver some of the largest banking and government projects in Europe.

Blogs

Trends in Financial Services

Does Open Banking mean the end of card payments?

25 Mar 2018

The first generally useful application of Open Banking is here in the UK. While it will be some time yet before it gets much use, new organisations soon will be able to initiate payments between bank accounts on a consumer’s behalf. This creates a new layer between consumers and banks, hopefully spawning novel ideas and services. Moving the centre...

Open Banking

What does Open Banking mean for Direct Debit - and how does it tie in to Star Wars?

20 Jan 2018

I went to see the new Star Wars film recently. At the time, I had Open Banking on my mind. I was thinking about its effects on Direct Debit, as the two could easily seem to conflict in a galactic, well UK-wide, struggle. It made me think back to the original films and ask myself: is Open Banking Vader to Direct Debit’s Obi Wan Kenobi? And, will Di...

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Gavin is Commenting on

What does Open Banking mean for Direct Debit - and how does it tie in to Star Wars?

Thanks for the thoughful clarifications Jeremy. In the NPA reports, Direct Debit is indeed both confusing and unclear. That kind of payment system was not really part of the design, but from listening to NPA discussions, it does seem that they are (begrudgingly?) looking for the best way to merge it. My use of "push" and "pull" here is perhaps oversimplistic for a strict reading - I'm bypassing the detail of the NPA to just think about who initiates/controls/drives the particular payment. There's a lot of interesting material in the new architectures, and I think there's a huge amount for end users to get excited about.

02 Feb 2018 Reply Read article