May, 2026

• 6 May

  Payments 3.0: Bluebird’s Failure Is Still a Lesson Today

  

  The end of a payments era will arrive on June 3, when American Express closes all of its Bluebird prepaid cards. It’s the end of a product that seemed to have all the advantages that a payments product could want, but seemingly never made the most of them. AmEx launched …
• 6 May

  Security Notes: How Digital Money Will Become National Currency

  

  CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) is a vision facing mountains of obstacles. It is a long road ahead before this vision becomes reality. Many doubt it. Alas, its future appears guaranteed based on one overlooked factor: taxation. There are no solid estimates for income-tax fraud, but they approximate around half …
• 6 May

  76% of U.S. Companies Suffered Fraud in 2025

  

  It’s a sobering condition of today’s payments industry that fraud is a persistent, pervasive, and unwelcome counterpart to legitimate transaction activity. Testifying to that is that 76% of U.S. organizations experienced attempted or actual fraud in 2025. That’s according to the Association for Financial Professionals’ 2026 edition of its Payments …

March, 2026

• 17 March

  Payments 3.0: Facts And How to Handle Them

  

  The science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein once wrote “you pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue.” In a time of government shutdowns, AI slop, and post-truth narratives, facts can be hard to find. Nonetheless, as companies develop strategies, there are guideposts for triangulating your position …
• 17 March

  Security Notes: Hidden Wealth and Social Health

  

  Humanity faces a long list of existential threats, from global warming to viral epidemics, nuclear war, and crushing meteorites, not to mention running out of ketchup. Here is another entry for the list, one that fails to get serious attention: hidden wealth. Before there was digital money, to open a …
• 17 March

  Klarna Looks to Banking Services

  

  Klarna AB released numbers in February that indicate the payments company’s processing breadth is growing rapidly. News of Klarna’s fourth-quarter 2025 performance also came as the company looks to further its growth as a global digital bank. “We’ve been executing on a clear plan: acquire customers through seamless payments, then …

February, 2026

• 1 February

  PayPal Looks to Set Up an Industrial Bank

  

  PayPal Holdings Inc. is embarking on another stage in its evolution with its application for a Utah-chartered industrial loan company to be called PayPal Bank. The charter would enable PayPal to make its U.S. business-lending service more efficient and reduce its reliance on third parties. Currently, PayPal’s U.S. loans are …
• 1 February

  Payments 3.0: How New Charters Are Impacting Traditional Banks

  

  The floral and fauna of the payments industry will be much more diverse in the future. New kinds of institutions are being chartered by both the states and the federal government. These institutions have a variety of purposes and powers, and they are lining up to compete against traditional banks. …
• 1 February

  Security Notes: How to Disrupt Public Protocol Digital Money

  

  Bitcoin rose to prominence because no government was or is minting it, so no government can unmint it. Bitcoin is minted by a public protocol that cannot be a defendant in a lawsuit, so freedom reigns, or so declares the theology of public-protocol money systems. Indeed, bitcoin is created by …

November, 2025

• 1 November

  Security Notes: Evolutionality: a Fundamental Need for Digital Money

  

  Digital money bursts with a bang in the realm of cyberspace, opening new gates, unveiling unthinkable possibilities, becoming a central societal feature—and determining of pulse of life in the years to come. There are thousands of digital coins, and countless applications. Countries are looking into shifting their national currency into …