December, 2023

• 1 December

  Security Notes: How Digital Payments Can Combat Antisemitism

  

  Payments is an ever-present social activity that reflects values, preferences, and customs. Hence, by imposing payment dynamics, one can achieve social change—especially so when payment has migrated to cyberspace, first as a mirror of material money and soon as a cyber-native digital coin. The possibilities are far-reaching, waiting for a …
• 1 December

  Payments 3.0: The Fed’s Dubious Debit Proposal

  

  The latest round in the fight over interchange fees began Oct. 25. That’s when the Federal Reserve released its latest proposal on debit interchange. To recap, the Fed’s proposed rule would reduce the interchange that banks with more than $10 billion in assets would receive when their customers pay with …

November, 2023

• 1 November

  Payments 3.0: A Supreme Reprieve for the CFPB?

  

  After last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s future seems more secure. On Oct. 3, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America. The CFSA originally sued the CFPB over its payday-lending rule in 2018. As previously reported in Digital …
• 1 November

  Security Notes: With CBDCs, Be Very Careful Indeed

  

  Digital-money technology is irresistible, and its impact is going to be much more profound than we can imagine. Money—an entity of transactable value formed by faith, not by per se value— may be seen as the mother of all inventions. It allows inventors to invent rather than get bogged down …
• 1 November

  Goldman Faces Some Hard Decisions in Credit Cards

  

  The pressure at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to exit, or at least radically modify, its consumer-credit and payments businesses has been mounting and may have hit its summit. At least some executives at the company are pushing senior management to exit credit card deals with Apple Inc. and General Motors …

October, 2023

• 1 October

  Parking Is the First Stop for Hyundai Pay

  

  Step one for Hyundai Pay, the in-car payment service debuting in the 2024 Kona crossover, is enabling payments for parking while sitting in the driver’s seat. Step two is broadening its capabilities and making it an integral part of the vehicle, says Olabisi Boyle, Hyundai Motor North America’s vice president …
• 1 October

  Payments 3.0: How to Manage Generative AI

  

  Juliet Capulet sent me an e-mail recently to offer me a marketing list for a conference that has nothing to do with payments. I’m no gentleman of Verona, but I definitely recognize the Capulet name. However, I don’t think Juliet is real. The e-mail’s stilted wording, the mismatch of the …
• 1 October

  Security Notes: The Cyber Ocean And the Chemistry Beach

  

  There are many ways to protect against a shark attack: certain wet suits, defensive tools, evasive behavior, and so on. Sometimes they help, other times they don’t. What never fails is to walk on the beach. Safety guaranteed. Same for the cyber ocean. If you walk on its beach, known …

September, 2023

• 1 September

  Block Squares off Against Mastercard And Visa

  

  In a major case whose effects could ripple widely across the payments industry, Block Inc. this summer sued Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., alleging the global networks worked together to fix interchange fees paid by Block’s Square operation. Square, which processes card transactions for millions of mostly small sellers, pays …
• 1 September

  Security Notes: AI, Mis-Profiling, And a Call to Action

  

  Artificial intelligence is profoundly impactful from a payment point of view, probably much more so than we can tell now. What we already foresee is part helpful, part alarming. I will dedicate this column to a particular threat: mis-profiling. Google’s AlphaZero AI machine taught itself to play chess by playing …