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Many years ago I worked on a project for a major Australian bank's HK subsidiary for tailored home loans. Based on the assumption that peoples income rises over time, the interest rate on the home loan started low and then was incremented annually by an agreed rate. Prospective customers were shown a graph that modelled the effect of this on the repayment period, early repayment date and the savings this produced. I don't know whether it was ever implemented.

Hopefully it will also be Apple-pay compatible so I can use my iPhone...

I don't think Apple pay is actually competing with Barclaycard this announcement will be about the ability to add a Barclays debit card to Apple Pay. The Bloomberg article is presumably about take up in the US where takeup is slowing, but that may not be the case here in the UK?

I've just been out to buy lunch which I paid for using my phone, and last week I realised at the checkout that I'd left my wallet at home but was saved by having my phone with me.

I look forward to a robot taking over my financial affairs, even after working for many years in the financial sector my financies are a non-productive mess.

Self driving cars are getting closer, once they are common on our roads its possible humans will no longer be able to drive as our reactions are just too slow and we are too error prone.

Similarly with financial services, will there come a point where we simply cannot compete with our own technology and all fund management decisions are made by robots?

Yes cashbacks were invented by Tesco to reduce the cost of transport, insurance and the charges of depositing the cash in the bank. As the fee of the debit card transaction is fixed, the cashback does not cost the retailer anything extra. By reducing the amount of cash they have to handle they are reducing their costs.

The maximum amount for cashback allowed here in the UK varies between £50 to £100, mainly to limit the amount of fraud as cashback is a favorite target for criminals.

Quite agree Bo that's why supermarkets in the UK offer customers paying by card a cashback, essentially make a ATM withdrawal at the same time as paying for your groceries. They are keen to avoid the cost of processing cash which as you say is expensive.

We may see the use of cash reducing dramatically in the UK to Scandinavian proportions over the next year or so with the rise of contactless payments. There is less friction paying with contactless than with cash which reverses the situation with chip and pin.

But we seem to be straying slightly off-topic! With fintech surely the tipping point  arrives when enough people use a particular service and like the customer experience sufficiently to comment / recommend it to others.

People must feel comfortable dealing with alternatives to banks and will be looking for convenience, great customer service, security and trust, and of course to save money. 

THere are lessons to be learnt by all of us in this story?

@Jan-Olof I found the same was true in Finland where even quite small transactions like a bootle of water are paid for with cards. Here in the UK there aere still small merchants that only accept cash, because of the expense of having a card terminal or maybe to avoid queues, although the latter reason will become less valid with the rise of contactless presumably. Also cash is used to share payments in restaurants between groups of people dining together, I know there are other ways of doing this but they haven't seemed to catch on.

It seems surprising that the BoE cheerfully admit up to half of cash in circulation maybe used in the shadow economy while celebrating it's continued expansion? From a government point of view doesn't it make sense to try and get rid of cash so you can keep tabs on people and make sure they pay their taxes?

(yes I know the BoE is independent...)

@Ketharaman for the Co-op bank their executives were probably talking about Why? for years which is "why" they are now in a real mess as reported here in Finextra today

https://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=27756&utm_medium=DailyNewsletter&utm_source=2015-8-21