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Glasgow, Uk

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2007

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Payments Regulation & Compliance Retail banking

Ainsley's blog archive

2016 (1) 2015 (1) 2010 (2) 2009 (3) 2008 (1)

Ainsley Ward

Vice President, Payments Solutions at CGI

Message Posts: 8 Comments: 25

Bio Executive Leader solving the Payments Modernization conundrum; Vice President, Payments Solutions at CGI; Consultant; Speaker; Writer; Innovator; Accelerator; Archer Career History See www.linkedin.com/in/ainsley for more. Any views and opinions that I express on this site are purely my own and do not represent the views of my employers present or past.

Blogs

Trends in Financial Services

Technodazzle

06 Jun 2016

I was reading an article a few days ago on the plateau of ebook reader sales and the slow retreat back to paper (here), and of course this lead my thoughts back to our own industry – particularly the nonsensical cheque lobbyists. However, does this harking back to a bygone era of paper banking reveal a bad case of Technodazzle in our industry? Tec...

Let's all go rob a bank

23 Dec 2015

If I walk into a shop, pick up any item and then walk out again, the chances are that store security will stop me and I'll probably end up in court pretty soon. Likewise if I walked into a bank branch and demanded all the cash, it's likely my face will end up on Crimewatch UK and the court will beckon. So I won't try either of those crimes (even i...

Belgium's Banks give Maestro borders

10 Nov 2010

A press release by FEBELFIN (Belgian financial services association) yesterday (here in Dutch) states that from 17 Jan 2011 Belgian Maestro cards can no longer be used outside of continental Europe. Today I received a letter from my bank confirming the announcement and blaming it on the need to 'protect my transactions from fraud'. Essentially thi...

Whatever...

European Union can see into the future...

22 Jan 2010

Just tracking a press release on the Europa portal and saw that they are releasing press releases in the future... The link takes you to a press release on the Spanish Presidency site that will be published some time in February! http://www.eu2010.es/en/documentosynoticias/noticias/greco.html Spooky :-)

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Ainsley is Commenting on

UK looks to improve bill payments with 'Request to Pay' initiative

This kind of service has been available in Belgium for the last 10-15 years (Zoomit by Isabel) and is a huge convenience for consumers and businesses. Delivery of invoicing in the same channel used for payment makes it easy to keep track of bills and the reconciliation data provided by the system makes it much easier and cheaper for utilities to get paid. This is definitely a model that more markets should look at.

07 Sep 2018 Reply Read article

Blind woman sues CBA over touchscreen POS machines

This is long overdue. The security and accessibility compromises that were made by the card brands to proliferate mobile payments were a travesty and hopefully this will help to pare them back. PIN on glass hugely contravenes disability legislation in most countries - and was hugely damaging to the POS industry as it kicked the chair from under companies doing things securely and with consideration. The Banking industry needs to learn a valuable lesson about finding the balance between deployment of new technology and ensuring that all sectors of the public are able to access services without hinderance. Particularly as we move into the Open API era and 'app-ization' of banking, the instinct to place technology over customers is highly tempting, but this is people's money that we are dealing with. Unlike any other industry, if we deny service to the most vulnerable in our society - those with disabilities, the older generation, those not at home with technology - we not only isolate them, we run the risk of making their lives increasingly difficult and forcing them to find more expensive or risky solutions to their issues.

17 Mar 2018 Reply Read article

Debit cards to overtake cash in UK by 2021

It's funny that this is a story because apparently it already happened in 2010 - or were they wrong then? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/8177237/Britons-use-their-debit-cards-more-than-cash.html The biggest issue with trying to demonstrate this trend is that there are no accurate records of cash transactions - the only number that you can use is declared cash transactions that are included for taxation purposes. It's great that card and FP volumes are increasing - I'm a huge supported of the cash-less society, but before we pat ourselves on the back as an industry, there needs to be a reality check. There are still large sectors of the community that are not terminalised, surcharging for low value transactions and little or no restriction on cash usage. Once these issues are solved, THEN we can start to talk about proper progress.

23 May 2016 Reply Read article

Trust me, it's not a secret

I've spent the last few years to and fro from the US working on the EMV migration there. Conferences and working groups are a stark contrast to Europe where the male:female ratio is near 50:50. All of the card brands (MasterCard, Visa, Amex, Discover and debit schemes) have talented women in prominent and powerful roles, and as drivers behind the US EMV changeover. It made a HUGE positive difference to the conversations that we were having and stopped a lot of the 'pee-up-the-wall' nonsense that happens in male-dominated fora. For me the banking infrastructure in Europe is in crisis because it's become staid, stale and with too much pride in some quarters to admit that things need to change. We've become tech focused rather than idea focused. Worried about the competition rather than serving the customer. This isn't just a need to get more women involved, it's a need to fundamentally change the way that we do things - and delivering a better gender balance would be the easiest way to achieve this.

18 Feb 2016 Reply Read article