Community

I like it.  But note how in your example it is the shopkeeper/merchant who assumes all the risk.  I mean, one month you may just leave and forget to pay, or you might actually die naturally aged over 100 of course and then who pays the merchant.

Most of the technological solutions to buying stuff have a lot of thought to where the risk is left, and how to minimise it.  Even in the Pay Now scenario, there is often a window of time where one payee can lose out (2-phase commit stops the online case). 

As for Pay Never - I guess you mean the barter system?  You run up some credit and sometime later you 'repay' with some other service to the value of the credit.  No money involved?  For example - perhaps you supply the shop with some goods which offsets your debt.  The operationalisation of this is  basically a stock market - where the value of different goods and services is continually traded and changing according to supply and demand.

I am an Android App owner, but after using it for a short time I reverted to PC.  I didn't find the App so good to monitor/read/respond to this Blog.

I don't think I have ever clicked a single Ad !  Ever.

Experience with iPhone includes being confused as to why it seems to load web content faster!  And take smarter photos. But still prefer Google.

I dont know about nomophobia, but I cetrtainly get 'chargo-phobia'  (sorry couldn't be very innovative here).  The fear of running out of mobile charge with nowhere to plug in or with the wrong power adapter which are not yet standard.   Owning a smart phone is fine, but actually try using it like a tablet and then you'll find out the battery limitations within an hour.

The other mobile related phobia is 'roamo-phobia'.  That panic that travellers experience when they realise they forgot to disable data roaming after a day in MWC.  Those bill shock charges border on the insane, for no good reason other than the Operators can still skin you for actually using the device you already pay for.

That assumes you 'trust' your bank, which increasingly these days people do not.  And that's not just populist anti-bank sentiment - its based on getting screwed over by 'faceless' bank organisations who do not want, and think they cannot afford, for you to talk to real people.

Great blog. Almost a rant, but with a purpose.  I also counted 4 direct quotes, unless they were there for artistic licence.  No organisation wants to trust identification to a third party which is why we all have so many passwords.  But Utility Bills are third party orgs, and they are no longer government ones either.  If you were to choose a third party to validate address - why not the Post Office.  Surely these days they could almost digitally know every name at every address for the past 5 years?  If they can scan post codes on every letter, why not the name.  Link it with some agreements with Billing organisations like your utilities, and it would be a great Trusted Third Party.

I'm afraid you are talking riddles to me. So you are saying that a France only tax will simply drive transactions to, say, originate in the UK.  Isn't that the point of striving for a pan-European (or further) tax on these transactions, so that there is less ability to avoid?  I sense that a short term financial transaction tax for all is better than a rise in income tax, VAT or fuel duty which simply hits the man/woman in the street.  I don't think the traders need to worry - won't affect their bonuses.

Whilst I take the early point about missing the point of the original Tobin idea, I fail to see the conclusion that the UK will not join because 'any revenue raised' will stay in others pockets ?  Its looks a little like a knee jerk from France, but is that any worse than paralysis and the rabbit in the headlights approach elsewhere?

This might be a case of try it and see. Lets not be held to ransom by the city.  I am not even sure they know why they oppose it (supposedly, Banks will relocate - but perhaps not to the winebars of France)

At the POS, the cashier never ever looks at the signature, so you do not even have single factor auth (because it can be a copy of the magstripe).  US could have been cycling POS terminals for the past 10 years to ease the cost.  To me it seems like a stubborn point of principle, and one which has no rationale at all.  Maybe NFC cards will enable US to leapfrog to there (getting EMV on the way) and save some face, because at the moment its a joke.

Interesting and something to consider.  Technologists would argue that this has still moved it towards being 'harder' not 'riskier'.  I just hope it doesn't take as long to close the tech loopholes as the physical ones.

This was always the issue with aggregation services. 

If Yodlee could prove that its not possible to extract the password, then they would be OK, but of course they cannot since they need to replay said password or parts of it in order to scrape the online bank access.

I don't see how they can do it without an agreement/participation of the bank. 

Some users might trust Yodlee more than their bank, or like the benefits of the PFM so much they decide to trust the Yodlee assurances.